X Legend - Part 2: Phoenix Rising
by AngelTheSeventh
Summary: Caelum changed them. It stood and fell for nothing and took half their sanity with it. Now we're running - alongside a dragon, a boy with Voidmatter in his blood, and a girl who can't think through the voices in her head. But she told me we have to find the Aether, the hostile paradise, but to get there we have to conquer Hell. We have to fight the Nether and all that lives in it.
1. Prologue

**LEGEND - Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 1 –** _ **Prologue**_

 **-{0}-**

Three huddled around a low oaken table.

They spoke in a language of muted whispers and frantic hand gestures, faces ashen as their nervous eyes darted to and from the sepia-stained note lying between them—the source of their fear, Azure knew. It was like she could feel it, pulsing with the beats of their hearts, laced in their exhaled breath.

She pressed her back to the wall and faded into it till the wood was contiguous with her bones and she became static, immoveable.

"They can't make us," murmured her brother's voice. It floated with the waves of his anxiety, roiling into the shadowed hallway where she stalked, silent as she listened. "Can they?"

The silence was enough for him. It spoke louder than words.

"What about Azure?" Her brother again. "We…we can take her to a village, right? She'll be safer—"

" _No."_ A heavy hand slammed down on the table. Azure flinched at the voice. "We leave for Caelum tomorrow. Azure stays here. No way am I letting my daughter live in…in a _village."_

The scorn in her father's words was undeniable; it'd spent years sharpening itself against those old memories, the ones he kept locked behind all his thoughts and all his words. Now it was a blade.

"Father," Marcel murmured, almost whispered, "she's only ten. She can't fight monsters. She can't mine on her own. She can't hunt."

Azure's bones froze up; her eyes narrowed indignantly at the fiery rush of anger coursing through her veins. Anger for her brother's doubt, anger for the confusion surging in her mind.

She left the wall, fists tightly balled at her sides, teeth grit so hard her jaw hurt. She walked calm and silent into the tide of deep gray shadows with flickering edges; silent till she found the door to her room and closed it behind her, sealing her inside—making sure her parents and brother could hear it from where they stood at the low oaken table.

Through the solid darkness, Azure traipsed across the floor, feet skimming against the wood grain should any small and dubious object catch her foot and send her sprawling down. She tossed herself onto the red woolen covers of her bed when her toe brushed one of the legs, mane of unruly flaxen hair fanning across her back and shoulders. She tilted her head and listened to the quiet voices she could no longer decipher, not through the shadows and walls that now came between them.

She couldn't see the redstone clock that hung on the wall beside the bed, but she felt it move as night lay claim to the world, swallowing the last fragments of day and hurling the sun far below the horizon. The moon was halfway to its zenith when the door to her room creaked open, when a lanky silhouette stood uncertainly beyond the threshold.

"What do you want, Marcel," she snapped after turning her head, voice muffled through her mask of hair.

Marcel clumsily traversed the darkened landscape of her room, stumbling over a stray book she remembered leaving on the floor the previous day, brought to her attention once again by her brother almost cracking his head on the wooden block next to her bed, the one that held the dormant redstone torch.

Azure lifted her head as he quickly regained his composure, dragging his thumbnail across the maroon tip of the torch, drawing a crimson spark from beneath the dust. Moments later, it flickered and glowed with the soft dimness of twilight.

She'd always favored redstone torches. Their light didn't waver. And, the bloodred color had always been pretty.

"How much did you hear?" Marcel asked nervously, kneeling at her bedside. She realized he was holding something in the hand he kept half-hidden behind his back; something blue and…almost glassy in the way it reflected the torchlight. "Do…you know what we were talking about?"

Azure scowled at him, her features bathed in red. "I heard you, Mother, and Father are leaving soon. For…hunting, scavenging, mining, I guess. And you're afraid of leaving me alone."

Marcel dropped his eyes.

"Wait—no. You're leaving some place called Caelum. But stop being stupid, honestly. I can take care of myself until you get back."

Her brother managed a weak grin. The light made it look murderous, and Azure flinched. "Y…yeah," he rasped, sounding like his throat was clogged with something. "You can take care of yourself. You're strong."

She glared at him. "That's not what you said to Father."

Marcel shook his head as if shaking away unwanted thoughts and feelings.

"That's stupid, too. You're only three years older than me, Marcel. I can do the things you can. I found that diamond last season, with Father underground. I even mined it myself." She wasn't going to admit to him that every time she thought of it, her arms hurt, her back hurt, and she winced when she remembered the way her eyes had filled with tears when Father refused to let her give up and watch the heavy iron pickaxe fall from defeated hands and clatter at her feet.

It didn't matter. She'd mined the diamond herself and got to carry it all the way home.

And that _meant_ something.

"Yeah. I know you did, Azure."

Silence. And she had to break it.

"What are you holding?" She pointed limply at the glassy blue thing behind his back. He really thought he could hide it, didn't he?

Marcel pulled a strange face, staring down as he moved his arm. His hand gripped the hilt of a blade stained cyan by the diamonds that had been sealed in the skin around the earth's heart, below her feet. "Just a sword."

Azure's eyes drew wide. She stared, small hands burying themselves in the sheets of her bed. "A _diamond_ sword," she corrected. And those were not mere _swords._ They were the blades that wielded Notch's power, they were manifestations of sheer beauty and deadliness. The blood of the mobs this blade would fell would stand out for all to see, red on blue, for all to bask in its long and violent history.

"Why?" she asked. Trying to remember if they actually had the two diamonds necessary to make a sword. She had hers, which hung in a frame on the wall—

 _Wait._

Her eyes flicked to the wall near her door that stood ajar. The frame was empty of everything but air.

"You— _Marcel!"_ she snapped, glaring at him, lunging off her bed to grab his shirt in her fist. His shirt, or the sword.

"Whoa, whoa," he cried. Scrambling back and jumping onto his feet, lifting the blade to gain his balance. Though he held the most powerful weapon she'd ever seen, her glower did not falter. "The sword's yours, Azure! I made it for you."

She froze. He froze. The clock on the wall did not.

It ticked on. A few moments slipped away and died. Then a few more.

"For me? Why'd you go and do that?" Her voice was a rasp, a whisper.

"Because you'll need it."

She swung her legs off her bed and stalked up to her older brother, eyes on the sword. Not him. "Because you're going away?"

"Yes." He held it out, flipping the heavy thing around in his hand so he could point the hilt at her. His hand wrapped around the blade. "Take it, Azure."

There was something sad in his eyes.

Gingerly, she touched the polished wood of the sword handle. It was cold. Already she could feel the weapon's strength siphon through the wood and into her fingers—and her pulse beat faster.

She took the sword. Its weight anchored her arm to the ground.

Marcel started to back away. Still the red glow of the torch seeped into the valleys on his face, morphing his features into a mask of someone she didn't recognize.

"When will you come back?" Azure ventured. Tighter, she gripped the hilt.

Her brother almost paused. Almost—but he didn't.

"Goodbye, Azure. Use the sword."

The light from the hallway swallowed him then.

-{0}-

Azure had been beneath the earth but she had not walked inside its heart. She had not seen cascading walls of liquid fire roll and burn down blood-red cliffs, feeding an ocean of orange and yellow. She'd never felt the waves of heat waft and roil over rocky beaches of cursed sand and drown the wisps of oxygen and cooler air that dared exist at the core.

She'd never been to Hell.

In a different place, someone else was in awe of a different sword—with a stained-black blade of pulverized stone, wielded by a skinless creature. A creature made of soot-colored bones, scorched dark by countless millennia living in the heat of the Nether.

A small boy had been running from something. It's hard to run when the ground burns like fire—but the sight of the otherworldly monster, a shadow against the firefalls behind it, had sent him streaking to the cover behind a mound of gravel. He crouched, burning fire seeping in through his pants and his skin, eyes wide as he watched the pseudo-skeleton stalk across the netherrack plateau. Above them swooped a high ceiling bathed in a thick red fog, pierced only by the small, misshapen stars that were clusters of glowstone, hanging precariously to the rocks. Like chandeliers with weak chains.

The creature wrapped bony fingers around the hilt of its sword, holding it slightly out to its side as it crept towards a shorter pink-and-green shape, crouching against the stone. A zombie pigman, reaching for a large brown mushroom half-buried in some soulsand.

 _Oh,_ the boy thought, suddenly realizing what he was about to witness. A predator hunting its prey, or a murder.

The Wither skeleton's footsteps were silent and ghostly. The pigman tugged fiercely at the mushroom before finally pulling it free.

The boy crept around the side of the gravel mound, struggling to get closer. His hands were stained blood-colored—almost impossible to tell in the red haze of Hell. He bounded up the slope of a hill, quiet as he could be.

Something told him the Wither skeleton knew he was there.

The ghastly creature loomed over its prey, casting no shadow, still as the stone of its sword. The pigman greedily shoved the mushroom down its throat, its golden sword lying forgotten a few blocks away. The Wither skeleton watched it eat, head tilted as if it was fascinated. The boy's eyes were glued to it, watching for any flicker of motion that might give away its attack.

There was none. The skeleton's sword strike was too fast—but he knew it was the flat of the blade that slammed into the pigman's head, he knew the pigman felt it coming half a moment before it hit. The creature let out a guttural scream, throwing its head down against the stone, mouth still crammed full of mushroom.

The blade tore across the back of its head, green blood pouring from the wound. The skeleton took half a step back, taking a moment to stare with empty sockets at the blood on its sword, to watch it glimmer and gleam as it dripped off the tip.

The pigman had scrambled forwards to scoop up its golden sword, whirling to face its attacker with an unbalanced stance. The skeleton darted forward with deadly speed, slashing its sword back and forth across the body of its opponent, mouth half open, skeletal fist clenched. The boy could see the panic in the pigman's eyes as it feebly tried to block the violent strikes, clutching its frail sword in trembling, rotting fingers.

That's where the Wither skeleton was aiming, he realized—the pigman's fingers. One or two more slashes and it couldn't hold its sword anymore, not without hands. Even more blood gushed from the pigman, and the skeleton let out a hollow moan of anger, the first sound it had ever made, trembling in its dark bones. It reached forward with a skeletal hand and buried its fingers in the pigman's chest, hooking around the old bones that held the half-dead creature together beneath its rotting skin. The boy's shoulders hitched in sudden terror; he shrank into a ball behind his rocky sanctuary.

The skeleton hauled the still-alive creature over its frail shoulder. Its knees didn't even shake, not once. It was sturdy as stone, unyielding beneath the dense weight of the pigman, body wracked in violent spasms as more blood trickled from the punctures in its chest where the skeleton kept its fingers. The other hand held the sword, point hovering just slightly above the ground as it started to walk, slowly, towards the edge of the plateau. The edge, jutting high above the ocean of liquid fire.

The boy stood, climbing over the netherrack he'd hid behind. Silent as he trailed behind the Wither skeleton.

It stopped at the edge, almost hanging over it. The pigman's stump wrists tried to claw at the skeleton's ribs, soaking the creature's bones with more blood. It let the pigman slide off its shoulder, chest still impaled by the skeleton's fingers. It let out ugly grunts and moans, eyes rolling wildly in its head, legs jerking. The Wither skeleton raised its blade, and the boy could see its jaw move, ever so slightly, though no sound came from its maw.

He crept up, halving the distance between them, terror pulsing in his mind and his heart. But he knew he wasn't going to run away. Some part of him wasn't going to let him run away, not yet.

The Wither skeleton held the zombie pigman's dying body over the edge, dangling above the roiling ocean of lava. Its sword streaked through the air, slashing through the pigman's midsection, below its ribs. Half of the creature fell away, followed by a cascade of blood turned dark by the ocean's fiery glare.

The pigman's jaw unhinged in a stuttered scream of agony. More blood pulsed from the jagged half of its body the Wither skeleton still held, green streams of it falling chunks and chunks till it fell in the fire, sizzling like acid. The skeleton tensed its fingers, ripping through more skin, more bone. Then the sword flashed across the creature's neck—and stopped halfway. The remnants of the body shook and jerked, not alive—it couldn't still be alive.

The sword made more cuts. The creature bled. It was like a ritual—like the skeleton was trying to wring as much blood as possible from the pigman. Half-severed organs hung from the upper half of its body. Chewed-up mushroom bits still clumped in its mouth.

All the boy could feel was a sick fascination. He even dared get closer as the body began to slide of the skeleton's bony fingers, to watch as it began to plummet to the fire below.

The skeleton peered over the edge, before turning its empty eyes to its hand—black bones stained green. It rotated its wrist, inspecting the flecks of blood dripping onto the netherrack at its feet.

 _The pigman wasn't prey,_ the boy realized. His blood slowly began to freeze as his eyes bored into the back of the skeleton's skull.

He wanted to run away.

The skeleton turned its head, skull grinding on the bones of its neck—halfway around till its empty eye sockets, drowned in shadow, locked with his human eyes. The boy shivered. He wanted to run away.

The skeleton broke his gaze, turning its attention back to the puddles of blood at its feet. Almost like it was disappointed it hadn't fallen into the ocean below like the rest had.

Suddenly the boy was running again. Away from the skeleton—far away. He didn't look back. He didn't see if the evil creature tried to follow him, but he knew, he _knew—_ if it did, it would have caught him. If it did, he would have died, cut into pieces above a vast and endless ocean of fire, bleeding red instead of green.

He knew the Wither skeleton had only stood, a breath away from the cliff's edge, watching him run away.

-{0}-

 **Sorry for the awkward mood-shift in the middle there.**

 **And the wordless cover. The site's having problems with image editing.**

 **Anyway! Prologue is done. I want Wednesdays to be my update days, but I think I'll eventually just go back to what I usually do, posting when I have crap done. Chapter 2 will be finished and posted soon, probably.**

 **So, things like swords and Wither skeletons were in the prologue for a reason, obviously. SPECULATE. I'm pretty sure this will be better than part one. If you haven't read part one, you shouldn't be here, but whatever.**

 **I'll probably respond to any reviews you might leave in PMs. AND... like I did last time, I'll take OCs however you might want to send them. Mostly because great character submissions made the last story much better than it would've been otherwise. So, review and send me characters. Do it.**

 **-Angel**


	2. Scavengers

**LEGEND – Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 - _Scavengers_**

 **-{0}-**

"There."

The wind ripped the word from my mouth, stealing it before I'd even had a chance to hear myself and hurling it far behind us.

No doubt _he_ didn't hear me. He was practically on his knees on the creature's back, gripping on the spines protruding from the small chinks in Sol's scales. His hair was a storm of dark brown whipping over his head, way longer than it should've been; there was no way he could see.

But he didn't need to—that's what he'd said.

The wind screamed again, slamming the hand I had been trying to point against the dragon's hard flank. My finger had just barely managed to touch, across the distance of chunks and chunks filled with cold air, the dark patch in the sea of old snow and bristly trees spanning in all directions below us.

Sol tipped his wings and I cried out, grabbing for his spines and digging my knees into his flanks. The wind was frigid and relentless, tearing at my back and my hastily-bundled hair and the feeble strength in my arms, waiting for them to give so it could pluck me from Sol's back and send me spiraling down. To shatter into pieces at the doorstep of a place I could barely remember from just a few months ago.

Jordan flattened effortlessly, like he wasn't afraid of the wind, like it simply flowed over his back like water. He even turned his head, though I still couldn't see his face through the tousling mess of his too-long hair.

"You good?"

I didn't hear him, but I knew what he said. I didn't respond, gasping as I let my arms relax after Sol stabilized and began to glide. I let myself hang to the side, eyes wide to stare over the edge of his wing at the dark patch, at our destination.

Jordan might've given a nod. It was hard to tell.

As I felt the weight of gravity began to shift from pulling me through Sol to tumbling forwards across his back, I watched the dome of the sky tilt till the edge of its silvery mass was coated dark green by the trees below, as Jordan's dragon began his descent.

I skidded towards Jordan; moments before slamming into his back I threw myself against Sol's spiny back, grunting against the sharp, old pain in my abdomen that sparked to life. Face pressed on his scales, I watched as the otherworldly creature let his gargantuan wings inflate with the rising bubbles of air from below like parachutes, slowing our streamlined fall. Sol was big—bigger than a horse, at least—but his wings dwarfed him. It was like a small toddler wearing his father's armor. They were almost too big for him; I felt every uncertain teeter and weight shift as he tried to find balance in the sky, every tensing muscle beneath his scales. Like any minute he'd topple and drag us with him.

I ignored the thought. I counted every second between us and where we were going.

There were too many. Not enough.

The ground rose to meet us like an earthen fist, the high canopies of the spruce and pine trees abruptly cutting us off from the sky and slamming us into hard, frozen earth. Sol's legs buckled beneath him and gravity shoved me hard against his back, disturbing the gash on my stomach that had refused to heal for months. I grunted in pain, feeling the dragon stumble beneath the new weight of the sky above us. Jordan leapt from his back immediately, readjusting the slipping straps of the heavy backpack he wore. I tilted to the side and stumbled to the ground, knees sagging with the weight of my own body.

"Sorry about that," Jordan muttered, giving his head a quick shake to force his hair out of his eyes. "He's half blind."

"Whose fault is that, dumbass?" I growled, trying to gain my balance. Searching with my hand for the hilt of my sword, keeping my eyes trained on the ground so I didn't have to see the hulking shadow before us. We were close enough to study the patterns in the wood grain, the caked-in lines of rot in the cracks, the Notchdamned fingerprints on the walls—if I looked hard enough, I could see phantoms with blurry faces, I could feel the paths around and inside this house they once walked. I could feel the memory of their presence.

I shuddered. Eyes still down.

"You didn't have to come," Jordan said softly, tensing his shoulders as he looked ahead, watching for the threats I'd told him were lurking behind the walls. Or in the thick shadows ensconcing the clearing. "Look, Azure, you can wait here. I'll take care of it."

"Shut up," I rasped, coughing as the words hitched in my throat. "You don't know where to find anything. I had to go."

He sighed. No use arguing. "Sword ready, then." With that annoyingly authoritative edge to his words, the tone he'd somehow gained over the past few months. The hardness in his eyes that told me the order would not be questioned.

 _Whatever. Play leader all you want, but you know it won't last._ I stepped forwards, my hand feeling like it weighed more than usual as it rested on Yverise. I watched Jordan cast a last look over his shoulder at Sol, and I could almost feel the thoughts that flowed between them, the unspoken words that only they understood.

I stepped forwards, towards my old house.

"You were last here with Jade, huh?" Jordan asked absently as he followed in my footsteps. "She said something about you finding her half-dead in the woods nearby."

I nodded, swallowing—it was difficult with a throat as dry as Xyrnies air. "It was after she came ashore." Pause. We crept closer. "We're pretty close to the south shore, Jordan. You know—"

"Yeah, I know." He cut me off. "I know we should leave, but that's not the point. Half the group at Nathi's camp can't travel yet." He said it the same way he had for weeks. So I countered with words he'd heard over and over again.

"So we leave without them. They're not our responsibility."

"Leave and go where?" he snapped.

I froze. I hadn't heard him say that before.

"What are we supposed to do, out there? We've lost our homes. All of us. Where do we go?"

"The world's a big place, Jordan. We can go anywhere. And we can leave it if we want to."

"I thought the point was to find somewhere safer. Not burn to death in the Nether."

I was quiet. Eyes focused on the doorknob of the abandoned house as we strode closer. Cringing when I lifted my hand to touch it.

I shuddered at the cold. Jordan came to a halt just behind me—blocking my escape. I felt the rise of familiar anxiety in my stomach, the itch to draw my sword, the urge to fight. To destroy the source of my anxiety, because it was the closest I come to fear; it was foreign; it was dangerous.

I forced the door open, surprised it moved so easily across the dark and empty floor. Shadows poured out into a day of gleaming silver clouds and the dull white light the sun cast when it shone through them.

A heavy weight forced me aside; I gasped as I stumbled away from the door, as I felt the gamboling whizz of an arrow as it streaked from the dark.

It missed—but only because of Jordan.

"Skeleton?" he snapped, pressing his back to the wall on the other side of the door. Sword in hand.

"Oh," I rasped.

"Oh, what?"

"We left because mobs got in. Too many to fight." _Or you just wanted to leave._

Jordan shook his head. "Get your sword out—didn't think I'd have to tell you that."

I was swallowing hard. "But it doesn't make sense—the zombie broke the door."

He paused.

Across the clearing, Sol was letting out a rumbling growl that began somewhere in his chest and rippled across the space between us. His one good eye fixed on the doorway.

"What the Nether does that mean?"

"It means—" Another arrow. I hastily tore Yverise out of the sheath, fumbling with its weight with an awkwardness I'd never had before. The anxiety was a burning bubble in my throat and behind my ribcage, ready to burst.

Jordan sighed angrily, ducking across the threshold with his iron sword clutched tightly in both hands.

"Jordan," I growled.

 _Twang._

Grunt of pain—then, "You bastard." I heard the sounds of metal on bone, the bloodcurdling _clang_ —you were always aware of the sound, it always found a way to burrow beneath your skin and make you shudder. You would think for half a second, _is that how I'll die—a sword slicing through my bones?_

Skeletons were human once. They were us without the extra parts—the heart, the brain, the skin, the soul.

"It's down," he muttered from inside as I slipped through the doorway, tensing against the stale, cold air of inside, the flat wall of darkness.

"But it's not the only one in here," I said, eyes scoring the black for motion that wasn't ours.

"You know, we might not be the only people." He tilted his head towards the door that shouldn't have been there. I refused to look back at it.

"That doesn't make sense. No one ever lived near us. Who would've come here?"

"Whoever replaced your door. I don't know, let's just get what we need and leave."

I was nodding, eyes scouring the dark for the motion of something sinister, human or not. But it was like it always was—look hard enough and the shadows were alive, a roiling mass of negative light where anything could hide. Look hard enough and you would see the faces you're trying to forget. Ghosts.

We had entered into the kitchen. I could see a low oak table barely illuminated by the silvery light from outside, where Jade and I had sat the night the zombies broke in. Behind it, built around the room's corner were iceboxes and chests, an old furnace with crumbling stone, empty surfaces for cutting meat and preparing food. I didn't know that because I could see—a blueprint of the house was laid out in my thoughts, a perfect image like I was staring at it lying before me.

"Take the kitchen, Jordan. Grab what you can; I'll head down the hall."

"Hall?" he asked. I heard his tentative footsteps as he crept towards my voice. "Yeah, sure. Call if you need help."

"I won't."

"You won't call, or need help?"

I ignored him, stalking towards the wider chasm of dark where the wall would open up to a long winding hallway. Three bedrooms. My hand traced against the ridged wooden wall, searching for the first door, tensing with the rest of my body at the chills that raced up and down my back, across my arms, inside my heart.

There was a presence creeping over my shoulder. It wasn't evil, there was no malice in the way it enveloped my body like giant wings with feathers made of shadow. I was dead still, listening to something but nothing was there—nothing till I willed it hard enough. Till I could hear soft murmurs and garbled words against my ears, like they were torn from old memories I had of this place in which I was much smaller and everything else was much bigger. I could close my eyes and see it—myself enveloped in a dead woman's arms as she whispered to me, told me the monsters outside weren't real.

My knees were weak.

It didn't make sense—their ghosts wouldn't be here. They had left this house years ago and would never come back. They had died somewhere far away.

I wrenched open the door to my old room, meeting the waiting pair of zombies inside with a heavy sword strike and a burst of negative energy that disintegrated the first, ricocheted off the walls and burst the other into nothing. Their rotten flesh spattered against the floor, dotting it with dark drops like rain. I ignored the sting of their blood on my hands and arms, waving my heavy blade around the old room like I was trying to get its dim glow to stick to the air and illuminate the whole room. But all it could do was light up bits and pieces.

Books resting on shelves with ripped pages and torn leather covers, some strewn across the floor like a careless hand had swept across a shelf and left them there. I paced slowly through the room, backing towards the bed till I was close enough to sit on it and felt the old thing sag with my weight.

On the other wall, where Yverise's light didn't quite reach, was the empty frame where my diamond used to hang. Now it was in my hand, in my sword—the one piece of this place I'd always had with me.

I sighed, shaking my head, leaving the sword lying on the bed as I crouched beside it, reaching behind the bed for what should've been left there.

A chest. I couldn't remember if I'd left it empty or not.

I messed with the lock till it flicked open and began to rummage inside, hands brushing against cloth and a few harder things. Clothes and sticks.

The sticks were useless; we were in a forest. The clothes, however…

The people back at Nathi's camp slept in the blood that had dried to their shirts and tunics, the mud that caked in the fabric, the tears soaking the threads. They could use these.

I stuffed them into the leather bag slung over my shoulder, tearing the quilt off my bed and packing it as well.

I reached behind me and grabbed Yverise by the hilt, waving it in an arc in front of me to paint a streak of ephemeral light in the room, illuminating the almost-barren walls and floors—save for the few books lying on the floor.

My eyes fell on the cover of the nearest one— _Genesis of the Void._ It was a dark blue, like a sky that wasn't quite night but wasn't quite day, and the letters were silver and gleaming like stars clumped together.

 _Oh. This one._

" _Your mother's a reader,"_ murmured an old voice, buried in the back of my mind. _"I met her here years ago, in the middle of Nix Forest, nothing on her but books. Not even food, just books."_

I dragged the book towards me.

" _She liked this one. She's always wanted to go up there, to the Aether. The genesis."_

" _Why not take her?"_

" _She's like most of 'em. Thinks it's heaven up there, but it's more like hell. It's not a welcoming place, Azure. I'll do my best to keep her from ever getting there. From being as disappointed as I was."_

I shoved the book in my bag and stood, crossing the threshold of my old room without looking back.

-{0}-

"You ready?"

Jordan leaned against the old dining table, sword in hand, bag over his back. It was stuffed full, inflated twice the size it had been when we entered.

"Sure," I muttered, passing him on my way to the door. "Let's get out of here."

He didn't argue and we left the house together, and some strange feeling made me turn and close the door behind us.

It was a house—the front door should be closed. It might look abandoned if it was open.

"Any other signs of someone living there recently?" I asked, trying to break the brief silence. So I wouldn't hear the phantom voices telling me to stay.

He kept pace next to me, eyes on Sol, who was lying peacefully in the snow with his wings clamped against his body. He looked like a horse with obsidian scales and a snake-like tail. "Yeah, some of the food looked—"

Jordan paused, his crunching footsteps in the snow grinding to a halt. Sol's ears pricked and his head rose, neck muscles tense, like a serpent ready to strike.

I followed their gazes, expecting some kind of threat. "What?"

Barely a chunk away, nuzzling through the snow for the frozen grass beneath, was a black sheep. Its back was turned to us—oblivious.

My brow furrowed. I stared at Jordan, waiting for him to break out of his trance. He watched it without blinking, without moving.

Till he did.

He sprung across the clearing, a silent shadow towards the creature that stood out like an ink blot in the snow. His sword was hilt-deep in the sheep's neck before it knew it was being hunted, its red blood gushing down its legs to melt the snow with its warmth.

It burst to white when it died, like all creatures do. Its ghost wreathed around Jordan as it ascended, obfuscating his face. I saw his hands as he bent down for the sheep's spoils, two black cubes of wool that he stuffed inside the pockets of his coat.

"No mutton?" I called uncertainly. He shook his head, pacing back towards Sol. Not meeting my eyes.

"What?" I asked, jogging to Sol. The dragon had stood, shaking the snow off his legs and stretching his wings to their limit in preparation for flight. His one eye gazed cautiously at Jordan. "Give me the wool if your bag's full."

He was already shaking his head, gripping the large saddle fixed to Sol's back. "No, I need this for something."

I narrowed my eyes, taking a deep breath before hoisting myself up after him. "For what?"

He didn't miss a beat. "For Jade."

Pause. Sol twisted his head around, waiting for the order to fly. Farther away, the old house sat, lonely and dark.

"She lost her jacket. I'm making a new one."

"Oh."

Pause again.

"Come on, Sol," Jordan muttered, twisting the leather reins around his arms. The dragon began to trot forwards, and I felt his bones and muscles shift beneath me, more rapid as he gained speed. His wings began to stretch, working up and down, and then he leapt—a dark streak across the ground, the cold air of the Nix Forest inflating his wings and carrying us upwards.

-{0}-

 **I have a chaotic life. Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. I was considering quitting fanfiction because I knew I wouldn't have the time to update my stories here, at least for now, but I've realized I miss this site. So I think I'll be hanging around for a while yet. I hate leaving things unfinished, anyways.**

 **PurpleSnow10: I guess I kind of forgot about this too. Thanks, it'd be great if you reviewed every chapter!**

 **Guest: Wow, really? Thank you! I hope if you see this through to the end, you'll think the same.**

 **Dark Jelly: I've got high hopes too. With Azure as the main narrator now, I'll be able to more easily flesh her out, so I hope you'll find her interesting. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Guest: Thanks for saying that! I'm glad you enjoyed it. As far as I know right now, there will be three books, but I'll be able to more easily answer that question after I finish part 2. I'm afraid right now that this story will be very long and part three will be very short, like a novella, but I'm trying to find a good place to split this story. Wish me luck with that...**

 **-Angel**


	3. Where Souls Go

**LEGEND - Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 3 - _Where Souls Go_**

 **-{0}-**

"What is wrong with you?"

Her voice was soft and sweet and almost otherworldly, laced with some hypnotic tone that would draw him in and halt his thoughts, if only so he could stop and take in the sound of her words.

"I thought you might've been happy to see me. But you've done nothing but stare out the window since I got here."

He wondered if the gods had given her that voice simply to mess with him, to distract him, to veer him from his course. The gods liked to mess with him.

He tried to focus on another sound-like the steaming of the tea she was brewing with hot water and wildflowers. He could zero in on the smell if he wanted, a thousand sweet fragrances warring with one another for dominance over the air inside their small house.

"I may have died up there."

He snorted halfway through her sentence, shifting where he sat on the worn woolen couch near the glass window. Webbed with fractures, fragmentizing the ethereal serenity of the world outside. Roiling emerald hills and tiny flowers like accents in a colossal green cloth, sewed into the earth with adroit and godly hands. "You? Die? Surely not the woman who escaped the Sky Empire."

He could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "How long will you wait for them? For her?"

He was silent as his eyes traversed the small piece of the world he owned. Maybe if he starsed hard enough, for long enough, he would see tiny dark shapes emerge from the smudge of a forest at the edge of the wide meadow. And they would fill his dead heart with a fleeting joy he hadn't felt for years and years and years...

"Why not go and find her? What if she never comes?"

"She will," he growled. "She's going to come back to the one thing she has left. If I try and find her...no. I can't risk dying now; you know that."

"So you put your faith in your dog, then," she scoffed, approaching where he sat, carrying two mugs of tea that still smelled of the flowers. "You can't control Agro. You can't predict her. All you can do is-"

"Trust her."

Feriah sighed, sitting next to him, her weight hardly sagging the couch while his made a crater in the frayed cushions. She held out a mug of tea to him and he took it, feeling the heat sink into the skin if his hand like it'd stay there forever. "What am I saying? She helped you save me, after all."

Pause.

"Question is-what happens when they get here, Heiro?"

"We make them understand. We do what Notch can't."

"And what if they don't understand? What if they refuse their burden?"

"Then they are weak, then they were prophesized to be weak. Then Creation falls to Destruction as we knew it would, and the universe dies again."

-{0}-

No sooner than we had touched down in the wide quarry that was our sanctuary did a scrawny boy with tired eyes and sagging limbs stumble out of the corridor built into the stone walls. Rusted iron helmet bobbing on his head, torn shirt billowing around his frame in the cold winds. Nathi.

His eyes found mine and they seemed to sink lower on his face, the circles beneath them darkening. "Azure," he sighed. "You need to-just come with me."

I narrowed my gaze at him and he looked away, staring back down the corridor like he could see something at the far end, illuminated by the weak torchlight. I slipped off Sol's back, whispering _don't_ to Jordan before he could try to follow me.

Because he couldn't, not where I thought I was going. Not yet.

I jogged after the worn-down soldier boy, listening to his voice as he spoke to me and noticing how raw it sounded, how dead. Like too many loud, harsh words had scraped his throat, like authority was too much for him to bear. He was a soldier, after all, soft-spoken and used to taking orders, not dishing them out in such a manner that would keep everyone in our makeshift camp safe from the threat that lingered mere chunks away. He didn't know what he was doing; that much was clear, but he was the only leader the people would follow.

"It's...well, it's Jade. She won't talk to me, she won't even open her eyes. And at night, she keeps everyone awake when she screams. It's worse than it's ever been, Azure, and I don't know what to do. If she doesn't get better, we can't leave here. Her and...Bailey."

The name shuddered in the air. No one liked hearing it these days, no one liked to be reminded of the mangled boy that crouched in the corner of the med room, staring at the floor or the wall or straight ahead like nothing he saw was really there. Hand always clamped underneath his shirt, lashing out at anyone who tried to treat his hidden wound.

Behind him, I darted down the hastily-mined halls of their underground camp, passing door after door as we traversed the earthen labyrinth. Nathi knew this place better than me or anyone else living there-he hardly ever left it, always bouncing from room to room, making sure everyone always had enough food or water or medicine, counseling those who had left everything or even just something small behind. I knew he slept but I never saw him do it.

He took a sharp turn and veered into a door, forcing it aside like it wasn't there. The red X over the handle marked it as the med room, warning others to keep away, like they wouldn't on their own. It was a dangerous room, housing people with missing limbs and a girl with evil eyes who screamed at night. He stormed through without hesitating, unflinching at the stench of blood and human parts that had for the first time been exposed to air, the shell of flesh that kept them where they were supposed to be having been torn away. It was a _wrong_ smell, a stench that wafted down my nose and throat even though I wasn't breathing.

I was used to this by now. I had gone down this hall too many times to count.

Several beds lined the hall where I followed Nathi, three of them dark with blood and the barely-alive bodies that writhed on top of them, dismembered victims of the Caelum tower explosion that had tried to burn them to nothing. They were Caelumite slaves or soldiers; it was hard to tell which. They looked the same, limbs and skin burned to crisps. They sounded the same when they had the energy to scream in pain.

Hunching over the bed to my right was the mute boy. Luka. The strange child Sol had pulled unscathed from the rubble of the tower. He wore a strange dark ring around his neck that glistened like the edge of a blade, cutting the gruesome pink scar scoring down his throat in half. He was constantly tugging at it like it was choking him, but he never removed it. Maybe he couldn't. It's not like he could tell anyone why he had it.

Luka held a small glass vial in his bony hands, filled with pink liquid-a potion he was struggling to tip into the mouth of a victim, bound against the bed. I stared at it as we passed by, a part of me convinced it was an illusion, the part of me that couldn't just _believe_ he could pull things from midair-but we'd never had the materials to make a potion. _He's an enigma,_ Nathi had said. _And he's not important right now. As long as he's helping, leave him alone._

Luka glanced up as we passed him but I didn't return his gaze. I wasn't going to look at those bodies if I could help it, those corpses that still housed beating hearts and minds that screaming through the silent agony they had to endure. Nathi would not give the order to end them. He seemed to still believe they could be saved.

We were heading towards the door in the back of the room where Jade and Bailey were barricaded. Jade, who was always asleep-and when she woke she would be afraid both to close and open her eyes. Bailey, who would hide his stump under his shirt and slump against the side of her bed listening with a blank face to her screams.

I shoved past Nathi as we came close and undid the lock, opening the door ever so slightly and slipping through, him behind me. But now he moved more tentatively, like there was something beyond the threshold urging him back, warning him of what was on the other side of the door.

The room was small; encased in stone walls. There were two beds spaced far apart against the back wall, and one was disheveled with the sheets pushed aside to form small roiling mountains of white and red. Jade was lain on her side on this bed, breathing deeply, hands fidgeting where the clasped each other near her face.

On the other, a small boy was hunched, facing her. His brow was furrowed as he stared at her, mouth open slightly like he had been speaking.

"Azure," he muttered absently when she walked in. "How'd it go?"

"That's not important," I said. "What's wrong now?"

Nathi inched around me. "I told you. We need to make a decision, Azure."

I whirled on him, and he jumped, scuttling backwards. "What?" I snapped. "The Nether is that supposed to mean?"

"Please," Nathi said quietly, eyes flicking to Jade and then back to me. "You can _hear_ them now, Azure. The Helldragons. They're close. Caelum may be in shambles right now, but they want nothing more than to kill what tried to destroy them. Maybe they don't know your faces, but they'll find us soon. I promise they will."

"Wh...what are you saying?"

"It's obvious," Bailey scoffed.

"I'm saying we have to leave here. We have to escape the North...not all of us, but, the ones who can."

I felt cold, staring at him with some mix of anger and surprise. Those words were wrong, coming from him. Nathi was the martyr, the good samaritan, the stubborn leader that would save everyone or die trying.

And this was the same conversation I'd had with Jordan earlier, but the roles had been switched. I used to be the one ready to abandon people-but now it was him, talking as if we had to leave her behind. Not because she couldn't travel, I knew that. Because some part of him knew what she had become.

He was familiar with the purple eyes. He'd been a Caelumite six years back; he'd known Nicodemus at one point.

"What exactly do you know about her? Why do you want to abandon her?"

"It's not that, Azure, trust me. She's…"

"What?"

"Dangerous. To everyone here."

I was quiet, my eyes finding Bailey's and locking there.

"They used to tell stories," Nathi began, wringing his hands. "About Nicodemus. About the kind of man he was before he tried to rule the world."

I watched Jade's hands as her fingers laced together, as her head bent ever so slightly till her forehead rested against them. As if she was praying.

"He was a good man, Azure. He had a family..."

"Rumors," Bailey growled. "You don't know anything for sure. You don't even know how he rose to power."

"I know that his eyes weren't purple before he built Caelum. I know that there was something evil inside him that…" Nathi shook his head. "Something whispering in his head."

"Jordan knows," Bailey murmured. "He was Nicodemus' lapdog."

"He hasn't said anything," I snapped. "He would if he knew something. And _you-"_ I pointed at Nathi. "Jade's the one who killed Nicodemus. I was there. Bailey was there. She doesn't deserve to be abandoned!"

"No."

I narrowed my eyes, turning to where she huddled on the bed. Hands fidgeting like they were trying to break away from each other, like they wanted nothing to do with prayer. "He let himself die," she rasped, eyes sealed shut. Her black hair cascading across her shoulders and face, skin the color of moonlight. "And now I have his eyes."

I cautiously stepped towards her, kneeling by her bedside despite Nathi's protest. "Jade?"

"Hello, Azure." Her eyes slowly opened and their bright purple glow bled out across her face, illuminating it with harsh shadows, her sickly pale skin luminescent where it wasn't dark. A shiver trailed down my spine.

"Are you-"

She cut me off. "He was dying on the inside. She was too much for him."

Long pause.

"She?" I ventured.

"But it's okay," Jade whispered, eyes sliding past my face to fall on Nathi's, who had approached her from behind me. "She's going to leave me alone for now. She's here, but she's going to wait. I'm not dangerous. I can leave with you."

She suddenly rose from her bed like she'd been shocked, hands flaring out to grab for the edge of the mattress. "I'm not like them!" she shrieked. "I'm not hanging on the edge of death, hoping to Notch or whoever that the next second will be the last! You cram potions down their throats like it's going to save them, but all you're doing is prolonging their agony. And it's _barbaric."_

I drew back.

"Just kill them," she snapped, closing her eyes. "Where we're going, you can see them soon."

"Huh?" Nathi stared at her.

And then she was looking straight at me. Her eyes set me on edge-the edge between anxiety and fear.

"The hostile paradise," Jade murmured. "If you want safety, go there. Souls do, anyway."

"What is she talking about?" Nathi was getting more agitated.

Bailey raised his head. I didn't like the unfamiliar look on his face, the deep interest, the surprise. "Are you serious?" he scoffed. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"God."

Silence.

"Notch. I see him when I sleep. I see a lot of things, Azure, but...that's not...important. What's important is that we need to go there."

"Go _where?"_ Nathi hissed, stalking towards her. "You're crazy, you know that?"

She opened her eyes and grinned at him and my jaw clenched at the sight: rip out her hair, tear away her skin, smash her skull in, and she'd look like Nicodemus.

"The Aether. We go to the Aether."

-{0}-

 **RenThePyro: Yorrick has an awesome role in this. I honestly can't wait for the Nether arc. As for her reaction there, that's a screw-up on my part; I'll have to work on getting used to writing from the perspective of a character that doesn't experience a basic human emotion. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, and for reviewing!**

 **Cam: Thanks for your support! And I'm very sorry this came a little later than you wanted, but I haven't been able to use Word for a long time. I had to use Google Docs to write this chapter...* _shudder*_ I'm not the biggest fan of Google Docs. **

**Relating to what I said above, I just resolved the issues I've been having with my Office subscription, so yay me. I wasn't able to access my planning documents and that set me back, but everything's fixed up now and it's summer. More writing time.**

 **Review!**

 **-Angel**


	4. Trust

**LEGEND - Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 4 - _Trust_**

 **-{0}-**

As soon as the door latched shut behind him, Nathi collapsed against it, every ounce of strength within him evaporating. "You know what?" he sighed, dropping his head between his knees to muffle the sound of his voice.

"What?"

I leaned against the wall beside him, crossing my arms. He looked like a child, the way he crouched in defeat. A lonely, parentless child. "We do have to leave here."

I looked at him, letting for a moment an expression of sympathy flash across my face before I crushed the emotion. "Why the sudden change in heart, Nathi?"

He rocked forward, running both hands through his unkempt mop of dark, too-long hair. He was a lot like Jordan in that way, their hair so obviously being the least of their concerns, growing wild and unattended. Their similarities stopped there. "It's like this: we stay and waste resources on the…on them, in there-" jerking his thumb back towards the room behind us—"sneaking around on the surface and hoping to Notch the Helldragons don't happen to be hunting us when we are. Or…"

"Or what?"

"Or we put them down and run for all we're worth."

The door creaked and a bubble of anxiety expanded in my chest—for a moment I was sure one of the half-alive corpses had heard him and had managed to drag himself from his bed, shaking off the chains of death to plead his case to Nathi.

But it wasn't a living corpse, skin burnt black and rough as rock.

It was Luka, slipping silently over the threshold, casting me a strange look as he went. The scar down his throat rippled as he nodded.

"You heard him?"

Nathi's head shot up, and he eyed Luka with a look of horror. The mute boy immediately began vigorously shaking his head, making circular hand motions by his ears. His face was frantic, dark eyes pulled wide.

"Good ears?" I asked cautiously, brow furrowed.

He nodded.

"Do you think they heard?"

His expression was suddenly pained. I read his answer in his face: _definitely not._

"You're fine, Nathi," I sighed.

Luka rummaged through the pockets of his thick trousers, angling his body away from me as if to hide what he was doing. His nervous eyes flashed, and he looked down sheepishly.

He drew a small stone knife from his pocket, flipping the weapon in his hand till he was resting the point against his neck. Luka nodded at me.

"Now?" I asked. "You want to do this now?"

Unspoken question: _Where the Nether did you get the knife?_

"You…you want to?" Nathi whispered. "Are you sure…"

Luka was motionless, watching him. Urging him on with his eyes.

"Oh, Notch," he sighed. Hugging his knees against his body. "Azure, I…I'm not like you, I'm not tough, I'm not strong. I've never killed anyone."

I was caught off guard—my eyes narrowed, I tensed. _I'm not like you. I've never killed anyone._

How did he know I'd ever killed anyone? Did he just look at me and assume?

"They're already dead," I said stiffly. "Or, they're getting there. Get your knife and help them along."

He seemed surprised by my tone, shooting me a puzzled gaze. "This doesn't bother you at all?"

"What bothers me is that you think it's better to make them suffer," I snapped. "This was your idea."

"You can't say it's better to die than live and suffer! I've always thought that's cowardly, Azure. At least they have some hope of recovery. They're still breathing. They're still conscious. If there's even the smallest chance they're get better…"

"Get _better?"_ I hissed. "Look at them—they're dead husks. They breathe out of instinct and all they're conscious of is pain. And whether or not we kill them now or wait for them to _'get better',_ they'll be like that till they die. Why don't you get that?"

Nathi was standing up, glaring at me as I spoke—and now he stood over me, a full head taller than I was. "You do it, Azure, if it's so easy for you. I'm going to gather the others."

He whisked past me, rounding the hallway corner and disappearing.

I looked down at Luka. "You ever done it?"

He didn't answer. His only response was to fish another knife from his pocket, a stone one, an exact replica of the blade in his other hand. He held it out to me, a weapon for a peace offering. I took it.

"I guess it doesn't matter, if you've got the guts anyway."

He turned to the door and wrapped his fingers around the handle, and I drew in a deep breath as he nudged it open, as the smell of death wafted out and poured down my nose and throat.

I wondered if the smell of death was dangerous. I wondered if it could trick my lungs into not breathing, my heart to stop beating, my brain to pause and trip over itself till what felt like an explosion would rip through it—a stroke.

I followed Luka inside, the stench seeming a living thing, lying in wait behind the door to spring upon us as we entered. I coughed, scowling and clamping my hand over my mouth and nose. Luka was unbothered, gritting his teeth and moving forward—straight for the nearest bed, knife in hand.

The smell was something I could feel, now, prickling as it swept over my skin, clawing into the flesh of my hand, trying to tear it away so it could choke me.

I turned away from Luka, stopping short in my tracks at the foot of the soon-to-be coffin closest to me, staring into the red fabric of the sheets—the shaking of the scorched mound of flesh beyond my eyes was so hard not to stare at, not to gape with wide eyes at the dead thing that lived, the human-turned-demon that rested there. It seemed nothing but a shadow in my peripheral vision, merely a dark silhouette, but the dark feeling crawling over my skin, piercing my hand, told me otherwise.

Shivers up and down my spine, elevated heartbeat, something cold blooming in my mind—panic.

What the Nether was this? Fear?

 _No._

I went forwards.

 _That's impossible._

My hand fell from my mouth. The scent plunged between my open lips.

 _Fear is what made you do it the first time._

Something clenched inside my chest, an iron fist, and I dropped to my knees at the corpse's bedside, gasping as I fell.

 _Fear is what made it so easy._

I lifted Luka's knife, the phantom weapon he'd pulled from midair.

 _But it's not easy, now, is it? This can't be fear._

I looked at the thing's face—and how dare I call it a thing, I could almost hear Nathi snapping. Even though there wasn't really a face there, no features to tell me if this was a man or a woman, just the faint outline of a skull, a scorched black film crusting in the eye sockets and around the jaw; oh _Notch_ how the fuck was it _alive—_

I froze up as a sickening sound hit me, made me shudder. I knew what it was—the sound of them truly dying, the sound of Luka's knife sinking into the hardened flesh of their neck.

 _Do it!_

"Ahhh," I rasped, adjusting my grip on the knife, pressing the razor point against the place where the neck joined the body, against the burnt skin hard as stone, against the throat of this corpse, small enough to belong to a child, someone young.

 _Kill number two._

It broke through.

The skin really wasn't hard as stone—rather it was as delicate as paper, its thin, glassy shell fracturing at the slightest bit of pressure on the blade point. It caved inside the neck of the corpse and something cold leaked out of the wound.

And then a cry.

A human cry.

A cry of pain, from the crusted-over mouth of this _dead_ thing, a whistling wail unlike any terrible noise I'd ever heard, rippling across the space between us to pierce deep in my ears, my chest, that dark space buried under the noise of my thoughts where I kept the memories of those times I turned, when I fell beyond the limit, those brief and only moments in time I understood fear.

"No!" I shrieked, ripping the blade from the caved-in space in the corpse's throat and plunging it back down violently. "No, die!"

The cry grew into a scream, an endless crescendo that made my knees weak, my arms weak, but nevertheless I pulled back and stabbed again, again, a crushing rage gripping me from the inside. "Why won't you _die?!_ "

It didn't matter I'd thought these things were already dead.

"Die!"

It didn't matter it wasn't truly fear I felt, staring them in the face.

"Die!"

It didn't matter that, if I stared closely enough, this corpse had a nose that curved just like _his,_ a jawline that resembled his so closely, a cry that could be his if it wasn't infused with so much pain, so much terror.

" _DIE!"_

And it did. The scream shriveled inside the mangled throat of the corpse, I shriveled inside myself, collapsing against the bed behind me. Leaving the knife where it was buried.

I heard a door open—not the one we'd come in from. It wasn't Nathi running back to try and stop us.

It was the other door. And then Bailey's quiet voice, edged in always-present anger: "Azure?"

-{0}-

He'd never felt so trapped, under the silver clouded sky that gleamed like steel. As the sun set, the bright glow only dimmed, faded from silver to gray to black, and as the day began to fade, the sky was locking itself in between those colors. Maybe Sol's humming thoughts were getting to him, slipping through the sieve between their minds. There was usually a low drone at the base of Jordan's skull now, a melodic ringing, a song that used his pulse to keep it in time. It was so much a part of him now that he couldn't imagine the empty silence without it, the way he'd surely go mad if it suddenly left him.

Sol crouched like a dog under the rocky overhang near the entrance to their makeshift sanctuary, muzzle tipped towards the sky like he wanted to return to it—or somewhere beyond, somewhere Jordan had never been. Somewhere he'd never seen.

Jordan was sitting on the crafting table he took with him, something dark and freshly crafted draped over his legs. He sighed as he stared down at it, Sol letting out a breath as if to echo his.

 _H-h-home._

It was a word pieced together with a myriad of different sounds, infused with roaring static. It wasn't a thought Sol had projected towards him, but a multitude of foreign memories that tried to swamp him through the sieve, images of darkness and a sky so dull and distant, he despaired at the thought of it. All the sounds and colors melding in his thoughts had been brought on only by Sol as he bent his head to sniff at the jacket Jordan had made, as he understood what it was for. Who it was for and what she reminded him of.

And all of it amounted to one pseudo-word: _home._

"Where's your home, Sol?" he asked softly, brushing his fingers against the otherworldly creature's black scales.

Sol huffed, shaking out his wings as he lifted his muzzle to the sky once again.

 _Footsteps._

There was a colorful flash inside Jordan's head—Sol heard Nathi's approach before Jordan. The soldier boy burst from the tunnel entrance, casting a weary glance at them both from beneath his helmet.

"Nathi," Jordan said, "what's wrong? Why are you out here?"

He paused, eyes flicking over his shoulder. Jordan watched the shadows warp and distend as a figure emerged—a man. One of the small group of survivors from the underground city, one of the people that avoided Jordan as if he could see the blood on his hands, still lingering after so many years, after even amnesia couldn't clean it away.

More were following him—a woman carrying a bundle in her arms, a young girl with long dark hair and a tired face. Xavia.

"What's going on?" Jordan asked, backing towards Sol, who had lowered his head and looked away. Trying to seem less frightening.

"I've gathered everyone," Nathi said breathlessly. "We're leaving here when Azure and the others join us. From what I know…" He trailed off, stepping closer to Jordan to whisper, "The Helldragons don't hunt well in the cold, especially at night, so now's the best time to get out of here."

"And go where?" Jordan snapped, louder than he meant. Xavia's head snapped up to stare at him as more figures emerged from the darkness. "Where, Nathi?" he said quietly. "How are you going to find a safe place for all these people?"

Nathi scowled, taking another threatening step towards him. "Oh—you give a damn about the people, now? You don't even know their names, Jordan. Just leave them to me; for now we're heading for the Cold Strait between the North and the East."

An old man had joined them, and another young girl, staring warily into the dull gray sky for the flashes of gold and blood red, echoed cries, the harbingers of their death.

A chill suddenly shot down his back; Sol began to growl—he turned around and watched her step tentatively from the darkness, unkempt dark hair a shield from any of the light that dared bleed through the clouds, to touch her skin and burn her. Jade's eyes stared at the ground and he couldn't see the color they had become. He was glad for it. He didn't like the feeling of vengeful anger that coursed through his veins whenever he looked at her, that tried to take over his mind completely when he saw her eyes. He gripped the black garment in his hand and cautiously came nearer, looking away when she looked up.

"Jordan?" she rasped.

"Didn't know you were okay to travel," he said lamely.

"What's that, in your hand?"

Around them, the steadily growing group of people were backing away, pressing themselves against the rocks, behind Nathi.

"Yours," he said. "Since the sun hurts you and all."

She quickly took it, careful not to touch him, straightening it out in her hands. "A jacket?" Her voice was dead and lifeless—the only way he'd heard her speak all the months since Caelum's tower fell.

"Like the one you lost."

Still turned away from him, she slipped her arms through the black woolen sleeves and pulled the thick hood up over her head, casting a deep shadow over her pale face. "Thank you, Jordan," she whispered.

He began to back away. He stared blankly ahead, hand against Sol's trembling flank as Azure, Bailey, and Luka left the tunnel, two of them shouldering small leather bags filled with the meager belongings they'd accumulated, a few supplies for the day-long journey to the North's shore.

"There you are," Xavia growled at Bailey, shooting him a glare that he returned. The boy was limping, leaning against Azure for support, handless arm hidden beneath his shirt where the axe gash still bled. Jordan knew he wasn't going to let her see either of his injuries.

In a slight daze, Jordan was hardly aware of the blank expression on Azure's face, her stiff arm around Bailey's shoulder. He didn't notice the wary glances the strange boy Luka kept casting her.

Nathi lifted his short stone blade into the air as the last of the group left the tunnel, motioning for them to follow him. "Jade, Azure, Dyra—take the front of the group, you two know the way to the Cold Strait. I'll be in the back with Jordan. If you're injured, stick to the middle. Come on, move out; I want to get there before this time tomorrow!"

Jordan lagged as the small group of twelve people, minus him, Nathi, and Sol, began to climb the steep ridge of the quarry. As they passed him, they sidestepped away, lowering their heads.

Nathi wandered to Jordan's side, shouting the occasional "come on!" or "pick up the pace!" Slowly they were making progress up the slope, skidding on the occasional loose stone or patch of dirt, reaching back down to help the others out when they reached the top.

"You're going to help me watch for monsters," Nathi murmured. "And that dragon of yours."

Sol snorted in agreement. At the sudden sound, the young girl jumped where she was climbing, fearfully staring over her shoulder at the dark winged creature and the sinister boy who stood beneath its wing.

Jordan sighed. "You know," he murmured, following Nathi as he stepped towards the slope, ready to climb. "It's not that I don't give a damn about these people. It's hard to let them know they can trust me, so they don't."

Nathi's face hardened as he reached for a jutting rock in the slope. "It's hard to blame them for it."

-{0}-

 **Going to start listening to the _Game of Thrones_ soundtracks while writing this. I haven't even seen the show—but that usually happens, I listen to the music first.**

 **Cam: Let me just say, it's awesome having a reader who's this enthusiastic about my stories. Thanks for your support, and for submitting an OC, but it'd be great if you could give me a detailed background and character description. And maybe the role you foresee him playing in the story if you've got ideas. This would probably be easiest done in a PM if you made an account for yourself, but I understand if you don't want to. Also, for you and other rather impatient readers, I'm going to start doing a progress report thing on the next chapter which will be in this story's section on my profile. So if you're angry I haven't posted, you can at least see for yourself that I'm working on it.**

 **RenThePyro: Jade will say and do confusing things pretty often now. Their goals and objectives will become clearer soon, and yeah, I like Luka too.**

 **To American readers, happy Independence Day!**

 **To British readers, happy treason day!**

 **-Angel**


	5. Glass Dragon

**LEGEND – Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 5 –** _ **Glass Dragon**_

 **-{0}-**

The sound a Helldragon made was like a scream through grit teeth and a metal throat. And every time it sounded, the group would freeze up and shudder, press closer to each other, pick up the pace a little bit; every time it sounded, it was nearer.

"Nathi," Jordan muttered, keeping his voice low so the group ahead couldn't hear him. So the trailing dragons couldn't hear him. Sol didn't respond well to sound, but he was much different kind of dragon. For all he knew, their hearing was so fine-tuned his voice may as well have been a shout.

Nathi was urging the group ahead from behind, sword drawn to hack away at any monsters that may dare to draw closer. He could hold his own just fine against the odd skeleton or zombie, but the moment a burning golden-red serpent lit the trees ablaze and descended upon the travelers, they both knew it'd be over, but they also knew the young soldier boy would raise his feeble sword against the column of fire that would end them all. And they knew he'd be the first to die.

"Nathi," Jordan snapped, but it was only Sol who seemed to read into the urgency of his voice. The creature melted in and out of darker shadows as he crept alongside his partner, a low rumbling growl erupting in his chest. "Move them faster, got it? I'll distract the dragons."

"What?" Nathi finally turned on him, nothing but a slate of darkness in Jordan's vision. "You're Notchdamned crazy. How would you—"

"You know as well as I do we don't stand a chance when they get here. And they _will_ get here. Hear that?"

They both stopped as the group continued onwards, necks craned to stare at the sky when the shrieks sounded, rumbling in the earth beneath their feet. There was another call, shorter, farther away, but it still sent shivers down Jordan's spine. "They're communicating," he said, hand searching in the dark for Sol. "I'd guess one of them has located us. It's alerting the other. Or others. Nathi, Sol and I can lead them away if you get the group to pick up the pace."

"Just send your dragon, then," Nathi whispered harshly. "What's your sword gonna do? It's basically an iron toothpick up against those things. Don't go, Jordan."

"I know he doesn't need me," he muttered, running a hand along Sol's steely flank as the dragon slunk in slow circles around them both. "But think about how the group will see it when I come back. I'll be a kind of hero to them."

"You already are and it's not enough," the boy snapped. "You and your friends broke us out from underground—we used to dream about stuff like that happening, Jordan. But they know what you did before, what you are."

" _What_ I am?" Sol's growl deepened.

"What you used to be," he corrected hastily. "The Sky Master's lapdog. A killer. One of the soldiers who sealed us underground."

He could feel the malice edging the boy's words, the bridled hatred. Jordan's eyes began to narrow. "What about Bailey?" he asked quietly. "He knows about the things I did better than anyone. But he doesn't act like you."

"Oh, Notch," Nathi sighed, whipping back around, running his hands through his unruly hair. "You don't even care! That's why they don't trust you, idiot. You've shown no remorse for what you've done."

Jordan stared at him, not sure if he was glaring at the boy's face, the back of his head, or missing him completely. He was aware of a heavy knot of anger in his stomach, the tension in his hand that hung poised beside the hilt of his sword.

"Go on, Jordan. Go be a hero. Go try and trick my people into trusting you. Go die with Caelum's dragon."

He hurried away, unsheathed sword catching the stray light of the stars as he jogged between the trees. Jordan grit his teeth, a feeble attempt to stifle his growl of anger. There was no attempt to stop his hand as it clamped down on his sword handle, but he froze as a distorted current of shadows seemed to swell up before him, darkening his view of the boy as he ran away.

Sol was crouched in front of him. Jordan could hear the rattling pulse of his breath, see his single purple eye blink open and stare him in his. _F-f-f-ly._

 _Okay._ The word sent a tide of calm rippling through his mind, melting those angry, malicious thoughts to nothing. He was silent as he pulled himself onto Sol's rough back and gripped the leather reins of his crude saddle, as he gazed down at what was below him and marveled at the fact that it was indeed a dragon, not a piece of solid shadow.

Sol knew when Jordan was secure on his back. His wings could spread at last, sheets of reflecting silver strung between his dark finger bones. The dragon began to charge through the blackness like it was daytime and he had two working eyes, his purple gaze sifting through the shadows and sorting matter from space to weave between it all, gradually picking up speed and extending his wings still further. When they began to fly, Jordan couldn't tell—he darted through the air as smoothly and easily as he did the ground, coiling through the trees to burst in a shower of twigs and leaves from the forest canopy.

And finally he could breathe. Here was empty space—there were no suffocating shadows, just a vault of nothing but air.

Sol leveled himself, soaring close to the treetops. Jordan ducked low on his back to avoid being peeled off by the wind, open his mouth to shout a command to his dragon, but there was a sudden hot flash of light and a scream so close to his ear it stabbed into him. He saw the blaze of orange light off golden claws and threw his arms around Sol's neck as he corkscrewed and ascended, perpendicular to the ground, arcing around the body of the Helldragon that attacked.

The blood-red creature swooped from the treetops, a trail of embers falling from its body to light the canopies on fire. Jordan could see enough to make out the shape of two men clinging to its back, a rider and a man with a bow. He was even close enough to watch the glimmering of the orange sheen on their skin not clad in armor—fire resistance potion. _I guess you'd have to be immune to fire to ride these things without burning up._

"Target those men!" Jordan barked, ducked against Sol's back. The Helldragon soared, a plume of fire billowing from its mouth to catch in the trees. The small blaze was building into an inferno and he could feel the heat even at their height in the sky. Sol circled once, twice, watching the Helldragon as it paced back and forth spitting fire, and Jordan realized—it was for visibility. The more fire, the more light, the better the archer could aim for him.

Here, watching its dark silhouette against the blazing inferno, Jordan could see the dragon's body clearly. It was big, bigger than Sol, no forearms minus its wings like Sol had. Its wings weren't as large, which was a disadvantage—it'd be slower and not as agile, but its sheer size and fire-breathing ability would make up for it and more. Its thick tail thrashed back and forth, flicking embers to fly in blazing arcs till they hit their mark and lit trees aflame farther away to spread the fire. Jordan could suddenly see Sol's dark shape beneath him, but it was only for a moment—he felt the dragon's skin clench and shift as his scales began to rotate.

And then there truly was nothing beneath him. Sol dissolved into the sky, the only evidence of his presence being the bending light bouncing off his scales, the ripple as his wings beat. He was a glass dragon now, virtually invisible to their enemies below.

Sol was smarter than Jordan had thought. As long as his body was in the way, the men wouldn't be able to see Jordan either.

The Helldragon began to coil skywards, its bright bluish eyes scouring the sky above for any sign of its enemy. Its mouth was unhinged, wide open to let out a calling scream. Sol dodged to the side as it got close, but there was no doubt it sensed the shifting air as they whisked past.

Another scream, softer and faraway, an echo of the first—Jordan looked towards the western horizon and saw a distant blaze scorching the treetops, signifying the presence of another dragon.

So there were two. _Fantastic._

Sol suddenly lurched forwards to clash with the charging firedrake. Its attack was a mere shot in the dark, a guess at their position, but it was right. Sol's head ducked under the Helldragon's as he aimed for its barrel chest, razor fangs latching onto its target and piercing into its iron scales. Jordan cried out in terror as the blazing-hot creature's head lashed back and forth in sheer agony, sailing inches from his back as its bloodcurdling scream assaulted his ears, as its heavy wings thrashed back and forth to keep it airborne. He was reacting on instinct and drew his toothpick sword, ducking and stabbing viciously at its throat while Sol mangled its chest. A white-hot plume of fire erupted from its mouth; its claws thrashed for a grip on Sol's lithe body; arrows whizzed by Jordan's head and pierced into Sol's scales. He snarled as he tore his fangs from the Helldragon's chest and snapped over its shoulder at the riders, clinging to the drake's body and tearing at it with all four of his talons. The glass dragon wrapped his wings around his enemy's flanks and refused to let go, oblivious to its burning golden claws ripping desperately at Sol's neck and back. The air was alive with their rugged shrieks of pain and fury and the roar of the blazing fire that licked at Jordan's back as the Helldragon struggled to stay aloft, to keep flapping its wings through the pain.

This was a battle between dragons, not the people who clung to their backs, separated from each other and unable to fight. It was a storm of fire and glass—if Jordan was burned, if an arrow had buried itself in his arm, he didn't realize, too high on adrenaline to give a damn. He only clung to Sol as the dragon storm raged, flipping and corkscrewing through the sky, sending dragon and human blood alike flying from it in arcs, fuel to the blazing inferno below them.

" _Sol!"_ Jordan screamed as he watched the Helldragon twist its neck to stare Jordan in the face, a red glow climbing its throat to bloom in its open mouth as the world spun madly around them, a dichotomy of blazing orange and a deep blue night sky. Sol reacted faster than Jordan thought possible, rearing like a horse to let the shot of fire explode against his chest before ripping away from it, heavy beating wings bending the blaze away from them both. The flare of yellow-orange fire bending across Sol's glass body was brilliant, beautiful; he was like a grotesque liquid sun as he fought to escape, graceful even in all his pain and terror.

Jordan hung on as Sol soared away, his body trembling, glide unsteady. "Sol," he rasped, resting a hand on his neck, feeling the shudder of his scales as they flipped back around and his body warped back into sight. Sol growled stubbornly, gradually ascending and tipping sideways to stare back around at the firedrake. It had collapsed heavily into the blazing, unstable canopy, flames licking and clawing at its body and the men clinging to its back. It screamed in pain and rage, wings spread to balance it on the treetops and its thick neck raised to spit its aimless fire skyward, but Sol and Jordan were out of range.

"Get out of sight," Jordan panted as he sheathed his sword, wet with dragon blood. "You hurt it pretty bad, but it can still fly—" He cut off as Sol vanished from beneath him, cloaked in his glass armor once again. Jordan pressed himself flat against the dragon as he glided in an arc, drawing nearer and nearer to the screaming injured Helldragon. Its two riders were struggling to undo the leather buckles securing them on its ruddy back, the gleaming orange sheen on their skin having lost a bit of its luster. They scanned the sky warily for signs of Jordan or Sol, standing waist deep in flames on sturdy branches next to their writhing dragon. Sol swooped close, making straight for the Helldragon's left wing and tearing into the membrane with an outstretched talon as they passed. Jordan whirled around to watch the aftermath—the dragon bellowed in agony, tail thrashing to and fro. It tossed its heavy weight from side to side, tucking the injured wing against its body and slamming into the men in its hysteria. Jordan listened to the sound of creaking wood and snapping twigs; watched as the tree began to collapse, vanishing beneath the canopy into the sea of flickering shadows below. An explosion of sparks erupted skywards; the flames jumped higher; the screams of the Helldragon thrummed against his bones. "Sol!" he cried, staring at his dragon's invisible head in awe. "You planned that? That was amazing!"

The fall could've killed the men; if not, it knocked them out, but Jordan knew they'd never wake up, at least not before their fire resistance potions wore off and the flames consumed them both.

Sol trembled in the sky, his ragged breathing scoring up his throat like it had claws. But still he whipped around, wings twitching, tail swinging heavily to balance him. Jordan looked where he looked and his heart sank—he looked with Sol at the maroon bullet streaking towards them, the second Helldragon he'd forgotten all about, the creature much bigger and faster than the one they'd just felled.

Jordan swore, sitting back, staring quizzically at Sol as he began to beat his wings and steady them, as he felt the dragon's muscles tighten, as he tucked his limbs tight into his body.

"Sol, don't do it," he sighed miserably. "Sol. We can't." But the dragon was ignoring him. There was a pounding thought in his head, one that wasn't his own and had fallen through the sieve, one that carried phantom sounds of screams, anguished faces, vague memories of that day he, Azure, Jade, Swift, and Agro had been running through the forest, only to be stopped by that glassy creature that had descended from above to mutilate Swift and deafen them all with its otherworldly cries. That creature had been Sol, of course, just after he escaped Caelum to seek Jordan.

But he already knew that. That wasn't why Sol had reminded him of that day.

The glass dragon was picking up speed, rushing headlong at the big Helldragon that was mere chunks away, a streak of burning trees following it. Jordan could feel a rumble building up in Sol's chest, a tremble, something that was already sending harsh shivers up and down his spine. It wasn't quite a sound yet, but it was familiar.

 _Oh._ Jordan went cold. He leaned against him as the dragon flew faster and faster, burying his face into Sol's back and clamping both hands over his ears as the rumble began to crescendo, edged in a whistling high tone Jordan could still somehow hear.

Jordan let out a cry of his own to drown out the horrible sound, to take his mind from it as it exploded full force from Sol's throat to pulverize the air itself, rip all its little particles to shreds with this hellish sound that everything within a thousand chunks would soon hear. They'd hear it and think it was merely their nightmare—where else could such a noise come from? What kind of flesh-and-blood creature could sound like that? It was a bloodcurdling hybrid noise, shriek of sheer agony coiling around a wail of unbridled sorrow edged in the whistle-tone that stabbed into his head through his hands.

Jordan didn't see the Helldragon falter and convulse in midair, he didn't notice its ears shrivel and its wings clench up, its nose dip earthwards as it went completely limp. His head was still buried in Sol's shoulder as his scream fizzled out and as the Helldragon fell through the forest canopy.

Sol never changed course. The firedrake had already fallen beneath him when their paths met.

Jordan hung on for his life as Sol finally began to drop, wings trembling uncontrollably as he struggled to maintain a downward glide. The next sound he made was a groan of pain that broke Jordan's heart instead of his ears.

He ducked as they broke through the trees, winced as Sol's wings slammed against branches and trunks in his desperate search for ground—when they reached it, Sol skidded clumsily, throwing out a shaking wing to prevent himself from rolling onto his back and crushing his rider. His mangled body skidded across the packed frozen earth to slam into a skinny tree where the dragon lay motionless and panting heavily.

Jordan collapsed against him, his labored breathing mirroring Sol's, but he knew the devious moans and grunts woven among the forest floor's shadows would not let him rest. Not yet. Not till the sun rose.

The boy painstakingly worked his leg out from between Sol's heaving back and the tree, stumbling and falling to his knees with the momentum when he finally broke free.

Standing was difficult. His legs were weak. He wanted only to collapse beside Sol and stay there.

He stared back at the injured creature, watched his dark flank rise and fall, gazed at his crumpled wings and mangled scales. _Oh, Sol..._

He remembered with a breath of awe how Sol had fought without instruction. How he'd attacked with the full force of his dubious power. How he'd reared and took the brunt of a fire-breath attack to the chest to protect Jordan.

The boy took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Vanquished his pain, his exhaustion, his weakness.

Jordan glared into the roiling darkness and drew the iron sword, ready to defend his glass dragon.

-{0}-

 **Ha. Aerial battles are my favorite.**

 **RenThePyro: You're right, now that I think of it. My writing's gotten darker as I've improved. There certainly won't be much sunshine and rainbows from here on out.**

 **Cam: Hey, Sol's not a pet! He's about as much of a pet as Agro. Anyway, it only takes a minute or two to make an account and another to send a PM. Your character sounds interesting but the sooner I get him, the better. I don't want to bend over backwards to work him into the storyline I have going, so it's best it I have him before I add in any more details. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Okay, so next week I'll be gone at a weeklong camp, so definitely no updates while I'm there. Before I leave I'll try to get most of chapter six going (if not completed) to make up for lost time.**

 **Oh, and still doing that OC thing till chapter ten's out. Submit now for a chance to see your very own character get brutally murdered in a Minecraft fanfiction!**

 **Nah, I'm kidding.**

 **-Angel**


	6. Corpses

**LEGEND – Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 6 –** _ **Corpses**_

 **-{0}-**

He didn't do well with sound. To Sol, it was only a weapon, something to be wielded out of a desperate need to protect himself and Jordan, no matter the debilitating effect it had on him.

Jordan was kneeling beside the lump of frozen shadow splayed out on the forest floor, ignoring the cold seeping through the knees of his torn cargo pants. He took a breath as Sol did, but long before the dragon had finished inhaling, Jordan's air was gone, a lonely white cloud drifting towards the canopies.

The boy was holding his hand above Sol's ear, a tiny hole in his head half-cloaked in a scrap of flexible flesh, like tiny furless rabbit ears. Deformed rabbit ears. His fingers tensed like he was about to do something he wasn't sure of—but he did it anyway. He snapped his fingers, once, twice, letting out a defeated sigh when the dragon didn't react. If he could hear him, the ear would've twitched.

Jordan clapped once. Leaned down close to the dark creature's head to say " _Sol!"_ in a brisk, flat voice.

The dragon's entire body convulsed and suddenly shifted, wings readjusting their position crumpled against his back, heavily clawed toes stretching as he woke.

"You're not deaf!" Jordan exclaimed, a grin breaking out on his face. He was a bit too loud, a bit too excited, a bit too willing to believe what he knew was false.

Sol was hauling himself onto his feet, tail flicking around aimlessly to balance his weight. The dragon swayed, his clawed wings latching into the permafrost for support. His head hung low, nodding from side to side in an odd, psychedelic manner, like he was trying to shake something loose inside his heavy skull.

"Are you…" What? Was he going to say _okay?_ Of course Sol wasn't okay. Gashes crisscrossed across his flanks, his spine, tearing into his thick leather saddle Jordan had spent days on end patching together. He shook as he lumbered towards Jordan, tail slithering across the forest floor like a snake, head slowly rising up to meet his companion's.

Jordan froze there—staring the creature in his one working eye, a pit of lavender fire that burned through his gaze straight down to the bottom of his soul to piece it apart, to know him. The dragon leaned forwards, Jordan still motionless, pressing the flat part of his skull against Jordan's forehead and unleashing cathartic sigh.

Jordan jumped. He wasn't ready for the flood inside his head, the cold rivulets pouring in between his thoughts and dissolving them, seeping against his memories and drowning them all. He wasn't ready for the strange and overwhelming vortex of black to rip through his head—powerful as it was, it didn't scare him as Sol brought Jordan into his own mind, a safe, cold, and dark place so different from his own, he could only marvel at the fact he stayed sane with so many words always streaming through his thoughts. Madness. His mind was chaos and madness.

Sol's was quiet—but not empty. No, there was a lot there, thousands of memories crammed somewhere faraway, out of reach, thoughts that streamed by on the edge of the vortex but didn't dare let themselves be swept into the core.

This was Sol—he could ignore everything he felt, everything he thought, everything he'd ever seen or experienced if he so chose. Jordan knew that was powerful. It was immensely powerful.

He didn't even notice the pain he felt in Sol's head. Here, it was nullified.

He didn't even notice he was staring into his own face through Sol's working eye, his own gaunt, hollow face.

But he did notice the silence. The sheer, overwhelming, crushing silence.

-{0}-

As they walked, Jordan thought of the dead man.

No doubt the corpse was far behind them, collapsed and crumpled in the dirt just a few chunks from Caelum's stone walls. No doubt the blood pooling in his ears had frozen and turned black, no doubt he was slowly decomposing, every component of his body dissolving bit-by-bit back into the earth.

The heart-wrenchingly terrified expression on his face would probably never leave it. Even as his flesh rotted away, the ghost of his fear would linger on the bare-toothed face of his skull.

He was just one of Sol's victims, driven mad with horror, his insanity enough to tear through his head and wrench everything to clarity—because somehow, he'd found a way out of Caelum. Maybe it was a stroke of genius. Jordan hadn't understood it then, standing side-by-side with Jade and Azure all those months ago, staring down at the corpse. He hadn't understood the madness and fear his dragon could inspire.

And he still didn't, not till they stumbled upon the second corpse. This time, it wasn't human. It was horse.

Once, the creature had been cloaked in a pelt of pale brown and black. Over time it had become mangled and bloody, and then, lying there with his head lolling back against a rock, his fur had grown dull, caked with ice and snow, torn out in clumps stuck in the dried blood pooling at his ravaged stomach. Most of Swift wasn't even there anymore. The wolves had taken what they could and ran with it.

Jordan made a small sound of something like fear or disgust upon seeing him, swallowing the bile in his throat and clamping a hand over his mouth. Biting down hard on his cheeks. Sol seemed to vanish from his side as he looked away, curling around the clearing's edge, daring to draw close enough to the horse's body to sniff at it.

"No!" Jordan snapped harshly, shooting a savage glare at his dragon. Maybe he couldn't hear, but he recoiled, body crouched and bunched together like he was preparing to leap at prey.

Swift had been his prey. His corpse was here because of Sol; just like the dead man's. The horse had ran like Jordan knew he could, limbs pumping and working far beyond their limit as he struggled to keep pace with Jade's Agro behind the minecart they'd ridden out of Lyperia. He'd ran despite the searing in his lungs, the dull throbbing in his bones and the gashes in his flanks that reopened every time he took a step. He'd ran till his body refused and shut down, his limbs folding in on each other at the edge of a clearing, still splayed out like he was mid-stride.

No doubt the tough horse had held on long past the point of his collapse. The wolves must've reached him before he was dead—his wide, dull eyes gleamed like moons, staring at everything and nothing, locking on Jordan as he gazed down but seeing right through him. His lips were pulled back to reveal square teeth blackened with blood; nostrils flared with terror. He'd died fending them off, kicking violently at the vicious creatures that descended upon him, screaming with nothing but fear and a fierce desire to live. But when he kicked, they tore off his leg, when he screamed, they scored their claws across his face.

Jordan wondered how the dragons and their men had died last night. Perhaps they died like Swift, awake and aware, conscious of all their pain and fighting to the bitter end. Or perhaps they slipped away and didn't even notice.

"Sol," Jordan barked—the dragon was already staring at him, unsure of how his companion would react. His presence lingered in Jordan's mind on the edge of everything, far from the sieve between them, but there. "Start digging." Perhaps Jordan couldn't bring his horse back, but he could keep the wolves off him from then on.

-{0}-

"I want to go back, Azure."

She was standing ankle-deep in the wet sand, not even shivering as the frigid ocean tide swelled up against her calves and sucked at her buried feet, cementing her in place. She was wrapped in the jacket Jordan had made for her, the hood pulled up over her head to shade her face. _There's something about the sun,_ she'd whispered. _It hurts. Does it hurt you?_

"What?" I croaked, sitting cross-legged on the slope of the beach behind her, fiddling with the sword sheath I'd crafted back at our camp in the woods. I was struggling with the cheaply-made buckles at the sides, unable to adjust it. My sword was lying at my feet, half buried in sand, rippling with its multicolored electricity—I couldn't carry the thing with my sheath; its weight made one side sag since the belt wasn't tight enough. And the buckles weren't budging.

"I said I want to go back."

Jade was staring out across the gray sea—maybe she could sea the smudge of land distorting the horizon if she looked hard enough. Who knew how well those purple eyes of hers worked?

"To the _East?"_ My hands froze hooked on the belt. Jade stiffened while I cast a sweeping glance behind me, at the crowd of our group gathered farther down the shore, hunched over crafting tables or standing still as petrified stone, eyeing the world around them warily, staring with horror at the vast expanse of the ocean and shivering in the salty gales that blew from the horizon. They weren't watching us. They were too far to hear us speak. "Are you an idiot?"

She looked back at me and I realized exactly why the others were keeping their distance. Her gaze was sharp as flint, not clouded with confusion or uncertainty like it'd been for months now. I leaned forward, heart suddenly on edge, like I knew what she was about to say would mean something.

"I will go back," she growled. "With or without you."

"It's always somewhere with you," I muttered. "First the Aether—now the East? You're a _public enemy,_ Jade. Go back and you'll be dead in a few weeks."

"I can make it home in less than that."

I opened my mouth to speak—but I was cut off by a strangled yell from across the beach. Jade didn't move, but I whipped around, hand flashing across the sand for the hilt of my sword. A woman from the group had thrown herself down as a shadow from the tree line took on a solid form and slipped into daylight, grew wings, legs, a giant swishing tail, a vicious face. The group scattered but Nathi held his ground, shouting a brisk "Don't panic!" as Sol slunk from between the trees, heavy paws sinking into the sand with every step he took. My heart was still on edge as I watched, searching for the lanky dark-haired kid that usually clung to his side, but all I saw were the deep red gashes gorged into the dragon's dark flank, the blood gleaming in the mid-morning sunlight, dripping down his legs and staining his talons.

"Jordan?" I called, relaxing my grip on Yverise. Sol's head swiveled around to stare into the trees behind him as a boy stumbled out, face blanched as he emerged on the beach and took everything in.

"Jordan!" Nathi exclaimed, his voice a little too high and tinny. "Did you… did you take care of the Helldragons?"

"You got here okay, didn't you?" he snapped in response, not even sparing a glance at the nervous soldier boy as he made his way over to me, dragon on his tail.

I rose, abandoning the idea of fixing my sheath. Sword in hand, I watched him approach on unsteady feet, watched his dull eyes sweep over the terrain between us and slowly rise till he was looking me in the face, till he saw over my shoulder at the hooded girl standing petrified as the tide tried to wash her out to sea.

He stopped. I wondered if he just didn't want to get any closer to her. I stood halfway between them both, head tilted as I slipped Yverise back into its sheath. Sparks flew, pricking down the leather and up my arm before they realized they couldn't burn me or anything I created.

"Helldragons?" I queried, crossing my arms. "That's what those things were? Why didn't we see any in Caelum?"

"They're hunting dragons," he sighed, nodding. Rolling his shoulder and wincing. "Caelum used them to conquer faraway villages and spread their influence. Sent 'em after us when we escaped. They're no good fighting with armies, they just torch everything…"

"Are you… okay?"

"Fine," he said, voice hard edged.

I sighed. "So, Caelum's not necessarily dead without their leader, then."

He gave a resigned shake of his head. "Of course not. Nicodemus was the only one who knew exactly what the empire was striving for, why we had Sol, but—"

"And Aenj," Jade said emptily. "Caelum worshipped a god only he knew anything about."

"Y-yeah," Jordan sighed, eyes narrowing in her direction. Sol shifted, an uneasy growl rising in his throat. "But Caelum can still exist without him. And without… Aenj. The empire's more than just the tower and the walls. Those bedrock tunnels we were trapped in have duplicates that actually lead places, like barracks, underground towns, mineshafts, places all around Xyrnies—no doubt there really were spies in Lyperia. Yeah, Caelum's not dead, but without Nicodemus they're less… sinister. Now they'll just be focused on expansion and hunting us for trying to destroy them."

"Nice," I muttered. "How much else haven't you told us yet?"

"A lot," he said plainly. "Now's not the time. We can't stay here."

I scoffed at that. "Yeah? Nathi was saying we should cross the cold-strait—" I jerked a thumb at the crashing ocean behind me—"But we can't go to the East. Not with Jade. She'll put those people in danger."

"Because she killed someone? Or because she's got purple eyes and says freaky things?"

"Because she's a public enemy!"

I noticed a few stray glances from the group up the beach. I watched out of the corner of my eye as a few broke away and came striding towards us—Nathi and the short boy trailing behind him with an arm tucked into his shirt. Bailey.

"What about those people?" Jordan said darkly, scowling. "What are you going to do with them?"

"I suppose someone has to get them to a village. Somewhere safe they can live."

Jordan laughed harshly, crossing his arms till he was mirroring me. "What?" I snapped.

"Somewhere safe? In the _East?_ Give me a break."

"Cut the bullshit, Jordan."

"Caelum's conquered almost every Eastern village, _Azure._ The South's a bit far from here, so your best bet is to cross the wind-strait into the West. We didn't really bother with most of that place."

There was something like anger boiling in the pit of my stomach, something acidic and almost painful. "So how long were you going to hold out on that?" I growled, stalking towards him and kicking up sand in my wake. Another growl from Sol, but threats are useless when you can't feel fear. "They're over there building boats, Jordan!"

"It's fine." Nathi stepped in, swallowing his nervousness. "We'll make our way along the beach towards the West. If that place is safer, then it's our best bet."

"Really?" I muttered, glaring at him. "You're that sure about it?" I was somehow aware of Jade's presence behind me without seeing her—she was cloaked in some sort of aura of cold that made Xyrnies' chill feel like a summer breeze. "You hear that, Jade? We're going west. Get over it."

She didn't miss a beat. "Why are you resigned to the notion we have to stay together?" Jade murmured, shifting her weight as she stared out to sea. "You came with Jordan and I to the North to find your family—but your parents weren't there, probably dead, and you took care of your brother, so there's no longer any good reason for you to still be here."

Any words I might've said died at the _you took care of your brother_ part, burned away by the sudden broiling fury erupting in my chest, my stomach, my head—I reached for the hilt of my sword, face distorting in rage as I lunged for her, as someone jumped for me and shouldered me back—Jordan. He'd gotten to me fast, expression suddenly frantic, arm out against my collar, face close to mine—"Don't," he said, almost silently. Almost mouthing the words. "It's not her. It's not her."

"Get off me," I snapped, trying to elbow him aside, but he pushed back and stood his ground, eyeing my sword warily. Sol slipped behind him, wings half-extended to make himself look bigger—he was a barrier. If I managed to get Jordan out of my way, then there would be him.

"Azure, if you hurt her, you'll regret it," he whispered. "You know she would never say that in her right mind. You know she doesn't mean it."

I stared at him, into the strange pits of his orange eyes, trying to fight off the wave of cold calm they seemed to generate, stepping away and shaking my head to break the trance.

"Go to the East, bitch!" I snarled, glaring over his shoulder. "Go _die."_

"You should go with her," Jordan murmured, still somehow maintaining his calm but wringing his hands like he was afraid of what I'd say. "If she's that adamant about it…"

"You better be _fucking_ kidding me."

"I can take these people to the West," Jordan suddenly announced, glancing over at Nathi. "You, Sol and I can protect them till we find a village. If Jade wants to go to the East… she can. It's not like we can really stop her, but she'll probably get killed if she's alone. So, Azure, go with her."

"Why would you…" I started, glowering at him, but he was ignoring my gaze.

"Look, you…" he murmured, sidling closer to me again. "You're friends. You know there's something wrong with her and you want to help. I… I can't go with her, but you could."

Jade's head was tilted back. I thought I could see the corner of her eye, staring at us.

"You don't want her to die, Azure."

I saw something, then. Maybe it was in the pits of his eyes, maybe just my head. There was an image of a girl splayed out on a forest floor, cheeks sunken and hollow, skin paler than white, paper-thin, and shot through with dark veins like her blood was gray instead of red. Across her stomach was a jagged sword-slash—no, her blood wasn't gray, it was black as pitch, black as the lank, unkempt hair fanning out around Jade's corpse's dead and empty face.

I stared back at Jordan, trying to blink her away, but he'd already left.

-{0}-

 **I'm not sure if most of you remember the dead man with bleeding ears, but he's in chapter 33 of part 1. And mentioned in chapter 39.**

 **Cam: The New and Improved AngelTheSeventh kinda let everyone down this time… I'm also not a guy. Is that surprising? Anyway, I will say that seeing all your reviews yelling at me to update has been pretty motivating, so thanks for that. Also, about your OC, it would help if you could give a detailed personality description. If I take him as he is, I'll probably give your character a smaller, more generic role, but if you're cool with that then let me know. Don't worry, I'll give him an interesting small role if that's the case.**

 **TonightsArmy: Heyy, thanks for reviewing my last story too! I'm glad you enjoy it and that you'll stick around. Thanks again!**

 **RenThePyro: The best parts of these stories are always the dragon parts. Sol can't communicate like Agro for a variety of reasons, the main one being that his brain is different, and yeah, being technically a baby is also a hindrance. Basically he's doing it by putting sounds together to make words instead of actually saying/thinking the words.**

 **-Angel**


	7. Leviathan

**LEGEND - Part 2: Phoenix Rising**

* * *

 **Chapter 7 - _Leviathan_**

 **-{0}-**

Before nightfall, before we'd pushed our boat out to sea—Bailey found me on the beach.

"Azure?"

His voice had been tired, soft, barely a stir in the perpetual roar of wind and icy, crashing waves against the beach.

My eyes had slipped from the uneven horizon to find him, the small, lanky boy lumbering towards me across the sand. His head was down, his arm tucked protectively in his shirt like always. Hiding what he'd lost or the grotesque black scar across his chest no one but me had seen.

Behind him, scattered in tiny clusters, had been the people; his people. Some of them knelt close to the tree line, speaking in hushed voices like his. Some were crowding Nathi's crafting table with planks of wood in hand, or stone, or leather—I could read enough into their wary expressions to tell that they knew what they were building was merely in preparation for the worst. They were building swords and armor because they knew bad things were inevitable.

"What, Bailey?" I'd rasped, crossing my legs where I sat, barely out of reach of the cold tide. I didn't know how Jade had stood calf-deep in that water. How she hadn't shivered, even when it gripped her with hands made of ice, even when she felt the cold burrow into her pores and stay there, to freeze her from the inside out.

Bailey slumped heavily in the sand next to me and I saw him wince. "Don't do that," I had murmured. "You'll reopen that wound."

He had been shaking his head, gray eyes flashing across the wet sand and avoiding mine. "Doesn't matter," he'd muttered vaguely. "I just came to say I'm coming with you."

I looked at him, eyebrows raised. His unkempt brown hair hung over his face as he stared where I had, far out across the sea at the horizon distorted with the faint swell of land.

He'd already started to sigh before the girl that crept up behind him opened her mouth. "You'd better not let him," Xavia had snapped, looming over our hunched forms with her arms crossed.

"Why's that?" I'd asked, twisting to meet her gaze.

"I don't trust him without me," she'd said simply, kicking up a clump of sand to burst on his back. "If you're so insistent on going to the East, then I'm coming with you—"

" _No,_ you're not," Bailey had growled, resting his head in his hands, eyes closed in deep irritation—like they'd had this conversation before. "Wherever I go, Xavia, we're splitting up."

I'd expected her dire expression to falter with hurt at his coldness, but the odd girl surprised me—as she often did. She merely rolled her eyes.

"Look," he said, finally turning to face her. Xavia tilted her head and glared at him. "Can't you understand? Azure and Jade need a buffer, and I don't want to travel with _him."_

I knew 'him' was Jordan, but there was no venom or grief in the word. Nothing was betrayed in his voice. It was a voice he could use to say anything—a voice that knew how to handle any word it had to.

It was the voice he used to convince Xavia that they were fine apart. "Jordan says we won't split up for good till we get some more answers about Caelum—after he's done relocating the people, he'll find Jade and Azure again. You can go with him then."

It was the voice that made me believe he was right. "I have to go with you, Azure. Try and understand."

-{0}-

I didn't know if Jade was asleep or if she was making the tactical move to avoid conversation with me, because conversation could lead to a fight and a fight could lead to one of us not making it to the East. Her head lolled over the port side, spindly limbs clamped against her body and drawn away from the boat's waterlogged center. In the back, next to me, Bailey sat on his knees, twisted to stare at the landmass we were leaving behind.

"Back in camp," he suddenly rasped, resting his jaw on his elbow, "Jade told me about how the world worked."

The words send a chill down my spine—Jade had no business telling anyone how the world worked in her state of mind. Whatever she told him couldn't have been good.

"There are four countries and an ocean between them all. They're united, but not. Separated but not. I asked her why they'd be united at all if they're all so different and she said…"

He shifted where he sat, body uncoiling and slumping face-forward beside me. "She said they must have some greater enemy than each other out there. The world has some greater enemy and they have to be able to fall back on each other if they're threatened."

 _That's not so bad,_ I thought, eyes sliding to Jade's dark form to watch it rise and fall with the roiling of the ocean waves beneath the boat. Small slivers of moonlight graced her forearms and her legs—the rest of her was cloaked in dull blackness. _That's the sanest thing she's said in the past few months._

"I don't suppose she knew what that enemy was."

"It's not Caelum. That's all she said."

I snorted. "Look how well we held up against Caelum. If our 'enemy' is worse, then there's no way the world can fight it."

Bailey shrugged. "Well, this can't be all the world." He spread an arm, gesturing to the sea and maybe everything it touched. "You see how big the sky is. I bet the world goes on forever."

I sighed, crossing my arms against a stiff ocean gale and believing for half a moment I could feel the salt bombard my cheeks. "I wouldn't know. I've never left the North."

"Me neither."

"That's different. You were confined to one place."

He snorted. "It's exactly the same. Don't you get why I wanted to leave?"

"You were afraid," I cut in, narrowing my eyes. "Of us when we first came in, and of leaving when we broke out. You were scared to look up—and now suddenly you want to leave everything behind—the North and everyone you've ever known. Even Xavia. Wasn't she your friend?"

There was a pause in which I felt my words diffuse in the salty air over the sea and then drown in it—in my mind, Bailey had fallen asleep and no one would hear what I had said, besides perhaps the fish below. Maybe they heard bubbly echoes somewhere over their heads and waited as they faded into watery silence.

Bailey dragged out the pause as long as he could. "She was. She was my friend. I think I messed that up."

"Yeah, I bet you did," I muttered. "Knowing you and all. But she was trying to fix it, don't you think? Back there on the beach. The least you could've done was—"

"It's bigger than that," he snapped. "Don't you think I wanted to fix it too? She was my only friend. I don't know why she stuck with me for so long—I went kind of crazy underground, you know, but she didn't…she never… she never abandoned me."

"So, in turn, you abandon her."

"Oh, shut up _, please_!" he suddenly exclaimed, and my eyes snapped to Jade's huddled form. I waited on edge for her to burst into motion, and when she didn't I was sure that she'd been awake the whole time, listening with closed eyes to everything she said, mouth twitching out of sight at our words and our voices raised over those in her head. "You don't understand! Look, I…" I watched him now, as he glanced down to the lump below his torso where his arm was pressed, where it had been hidden for months on end, a piece of him that hadn't seen the sun.

"Do you really think she cares you've only got one hand?"

"No. I know she wouldn't."

"So then what—"

"I'm dying."

For once, I faltered—my indignantly authoritative expression dissolved into a blank slate and I looked at him and there was nothing there, nothing on my face, nothing on his. He breathed out slowly, carefully, like it could be his last and he wanted it to be perfect, the white sheet of fog dissipating before him like a candle flame might.

"What?"

For once, his crippled arm began to move, retracting from the inside of his shirt like a bony snake. I couldn't help but stare at how his arm transitioned from forearm to wrist to nothing; there was, of course, something unnatural about nothing where there should be something, and it made me want to shiver.

I didn't—not yet.

Then he lifted his shirt, at first only exposing the bottom of his pale stomach; but then, there was more of him, scored through with a scar that gaped like the maw of some hellish creature—black and shimmering greenish-gray, veins of its darkness seeping into his skin and burrowing through him with a dark kind of poison I couldn't smell but feel. It was like the corpse room. Death was already there, dripping from it, roiling inside him—yet biding its time.

"Yours will heal," he rasped. "You're like him. Voidmatter weapons don't have… _this_ kind of an effect."

My hand flew instinctively to the sore line on my stomach, caked in blood and black stuff that built up rather absently around the edges till I brushed it off, through movement or manually when I checked, at night, like every time I looked I was expecting it to be gone or worse.

I hadn't seen much of what Nicodemus had done in the tower. I had been there, with Bailey, chained against a column—then I had been on my back next to someone I had almost given up on ever seeing again. And then I did give up. There were wounds all over my body and I felt none of them; there were fights raging above my head and I saw nothing.

I remember Bailey collapsing beside me.

I remember Jade.

I remember the tower leaning, the sky leaning, and a dark winged shadow whipping past to save us from being crushed inside it.

"He slashed you with the axe?" I murmured quietly, reaching with a hand to lower his that gripped them hem of his shirt so tightly, his fist was empty and bloodless.

"No," he rasped, "he slashed me with Yverise. He told me I'll shrivel up and fade away—that's what Voidmatter does."

I gripped the hilt of my sword, wrapped in a protective leather sheath at my side—a harmless blade now. A beacon of cataclysmic power if I wanted it to be. "Bailey…" I tried to say, but my voice was so soft it melded with the noise of waves breaking against the stern of the boat.

"I don't know much about it," he said calmly, quietly. "I think it's more like a poison in my blood. I know how this stuff's from the Void itself and nothing survives there—so it's going to kill me from the inside, and it's going to hurt. It could take a whole year or another few days. Look, I don't know—I just wanted to tell you so you'd understand if I drop dead suddenly."

I wanted him to stop—stop talking about it like it was nothing. Stop talking about it at all.

What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I handle anything anymore? Death or dying or loss.

Maybe it was all because of Marcel.

"I don't want Xavia to be around when that happens. Maybe tell her I died heroically or something—fending off a creeper or… or more evil men with swords. Notch knows there are a lot of those out there."

I looked at him like was already dead. He was a phantom and I could see the white crests of the waves through his head and his chest.

"Let's… not talk about this, okay?" he whispered, sinking where he sat, leaning his head back against the boat. "I'm tired. Just wake me if something happens."

He sunk far, far away from me in the span of only minutes, through the dark veil of sleep that would shield him from the fear he didn't seem to feel at his impending and inevitable death.

I was alone.

I watched them both, Jade and Bailey, only thinking about how they were out of reach. Gone. One on the edge of madness, one on the edge of dying.

The boat slogged with the winding current of breaking waves at a wanton diagonal towards the dark mass to the east, blacker than the night sky stretched above it; _barely_ above it—there were mountains there. Bigger than I'd ever seen, almost sinful in their height, their gargantuan statures seemingly rivaling the sky itself. They grew closer with time—they grew larger.

The moon slid across the sky too fast, rushing through the night like it felt something sinister below, something that had to come to light as fast as the moon could force the sun to rise.

I didn't sleep. I watched the hulking form of the mountains as we approached, as the moon inched past its zenith towards the welcoming embrace of the horizon far behind me. There had been some feeling of wrongness settled in my skin from the moment the three of us pushed offshore—and no release when we eased past the breakers, no cathartic, involuntary slump of my shoulders when Bailey confessed. So I was on edge.

But I felt the release when I saw the lights underwater, luminous globes of bright cerulean weaving and coiling in parallel lines as if strung together by rope, heaving beneath the water's surface. The cold light broke through in watery, cascading sheets that lit up the ocean as far as I could see it; as far as I knew it was a kind of light that traveled for chunks on end, leaving not a single block untouched and darkened. No matter its source was below us—blue daylight pooled in our boat and I saw everything; the hard mask of forced calmness on Bailey's indignant face, the misshapen lump on his stomach and the thin shirt that did nothing to hide what was beneath it. I saw Jade, a tense ball of limbs and dark hair, awake eyes squeezed shut against the unnatural glow and the air that seemed alive with it.

I breathed out some sort of sigh and leaned over port side, knowing these lights were not solitary and lifeless—rather, they were part of something that held them together, some creature thick-bodied and serpentine and tipped towards the ocean surface. The light grew stronger, my pulse faster as it coiled skyward, as I made out the hulking black silhouette to which the light was ensnared.

It was getting close; too close.

"Bailey!" I gave a sharp call, whipping back inside the boat. "Jade! Get up!"

I think I felt Jade's eyes open. The air was heavier, colder, suddenly trying not to freeze. She made barely a motion and was sitting up, leaning over the edge by her shoulders, the glow of her eyes dull juxtaposed with the ethereal light from underwater, herself even smaller and weaker framed in the massive silhouette of this serpentine juggernaut.

Bailey almost capsized the boat in his effort to take it all in at once—the wrong-colored daylight at night, the alien creature below us—I pulled him back in by the hem of his shirt. "Get your bags," I commanded. "Hold on to them."

"Why?" Bailey started to say, but that was before the almost-rubbery film on the surface of the ocean split and tore apart only about five blocks from where we floated, when the dark and narrow mass of the creature's face breached. I pulled my small bag to my body, hand resting on the hilt of my sword like that blue toothpick would do anything against a creature of this scale. Bailey cried out in awe—long, paddle-like fins four times the length of out boat broke after its head, spinning rain-like spray from their serrated edges. They flared out like flat, bony wings, glowing with their own blue fire, dousing us in seawater showers—simple harbingers of the tsunami rippling out from its body, the mere water it displaced on its journey to the surface. The boat only rocked with the first one and we gripped the sides, unable to wrench our eyes away from the creature as it fought gravity to tear itself from the sea, as if the blue globes lining its sides were stars and it was trying to give them back to the sky.

We didn't look away till nature forced us. The giant collapsed flat on its side and the ocean exploded in response—there was some sorrowful breaking of waves and creaking of the wood like its failure to fly was something to be mourned and I saw the white of the flat wall of water and the dimmed blue glow on the other side as it raced toward us, no regard for the small rowboat in its path—only the dark and faraway shore could hope to slow it.

Jade had been whispering to herself since she woke. I heard it, but it was like the sound of tiny waves breaking against the sides of our boat, a noise so small and insignificant that it felt like nothing.

But, as the dark mass of water broke and crested above our heads, as the stern tipped skyward, suddenly her voice was strong enough—as I stared at her in horror, her lips formed a word she shouldn't have known.

" _Leviathan."_

The wave crushed down on us and then there was nothing but water.

-{0}-

 **Well, Christ. Sorry guys! I made the mistake of taking an AP government class and it's kicking my ass right now. In general, I'm trying to adjust to the start of school and work out time for writing—I've started waking up at four A.M. for it if it can, so there' s that. Right now, I'm only writing fanfiction on the weekends, but progress is being made.**

 **Cam—Thank you so much for what you said. You'd think after something like that I would post faster… Anyway, I'm glad you have so much confidence in my ability and that you're as loyal as you are to this story. It's good to know that no matter how long I take, you won't abandon it. Thanks again. …Oh, and not that I really play Pokemon Go, but #TeamValor.**

 **TonightsArmy—I think Bailey going, especially with this chapter's developments, will make things a little more interesting. Oh, and thank you for your support and agreeing with what Cam said. Honestly, you guys are awesome.**

 **JTLETSGETIT—Not as long as the last boat ride. Thank God for that. Thanks for your review too, though Sadie's not actually in Jade's village anymore.**

 **-Angel**


	8. Author's Message

**Hey, followers of mine. I have a few things to say.**

 **I've made considerable strides in my life these past few months. These are mostly in regards to school, but I won't deny it—I've gotten better at almost everything I do. It's probably apparent to you all that I have been… preoccupied.**

 **I've realized something. Actually, I realized this long ago, but never did much about it: it's quite unfair to keep the loyal few of you waiting for something I can't guarantee I won't abandon. Or finish. You could almost consider it… a dick move.**

 **You probably see where this is going.**

 **I won't be working on this trilogy anymore. I don't want to make excuses because you know and I know there're always gonna be a million reasons not to do something, but there's a bottom-line: I can no longer convince myself it's a good idea to keep going. And I know I need to make a decision—continue or don't. I can't just suspend this thing in limbo for a year and _then_ post a new chapter. So this is me making a decision. **

**It may seem ironic, but I do hate giving up on things. It eats me away on the inside. This will be the third story I've abandoned on this site—pathetic, I know—but I see no reason to force another story and a half out of myself for the sake of having something done. I do enjoy getting things done, but now I'm funneling my energy into projects I'm still invested in and have a real desire to see through. I think I'd rather leave _Legend_ as is and move on to those things.**

 **And I seriously am moving on—to another state, for the first time in five years. To my other projects here that I'm interested in working on, to trying to finish my first original fiction novel, however shitty this draft will be.**

 **I'm finding some solace in the fact that any writing skill I have now is because of the _Legend_ series. See, the only way to get good at something is to do it a lot (duh), and the fact that in its early days of internet publication, my motivation for writing it was both a) I was excited about the ideas I had and b) actual, live people were too, I was writing this damn thing nonstop and advanced about five years in skill level in the span of two.**

 **For that reason, _Legend_ is very special to me. It's not something I'm cramming at the bottom of a file folder in my hard drive and forgetting about. Not only is it responsible for helping me get good at something like I've always wanted, but it introduced me to you wonderful people. You people that actually take time out of your days to follow or favorite or write comments on little stories that sad and hopeless aspiring writers post on internet websites in vain hope for any kind of fleeting recognition—**

 **Okay. That was twelve-year-old me. Nearly sixteen-year-old me is far beyond all that emo crap.**

 **But really, thank you all _sooooooooooo_ much. I only continued after the prologue of Part 1 because I had support. I was more dependent on that kind of thing back then. I would call out specific people to thank, because god knows there are a few of you that deserve the recognition, but that's something I'll be putting on my profile later on. You know, so followers of mine that don't read my Minecraft stories can see how awesome you are.**

 **And hey—I may be throwing in the towel for this wonderful series, but rest assured, I'm not leaving FanFiction or anything drastic like that. I've got people to keep in touch with and stories to read and write—unfortunately, _Legend_ isn't included on that list anymore. I guess if you never cared about what I had to say and only followed for the story, things still kind of suck, but… ehh. You'll probably get over it.**

 **Now, to conclude this obnoxiously long and corny author's note, I'd like to encourage all of you—even the mass of you that don't normally comment—to let me know what you ever read this for. Tell me your favorite part of it all. Tell me your least favorite if you want. Tear it to pieces, tell me it sucked—I've gotta get used to harsh criticism anyway. Honestly** **I just want to hear from you guys a last time before we move on.**

 **Happy New Year. :)**


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